


The Soul That You Used

by WillowPerpetua



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Online Dating, Anal Sex, Ghost Bucky Barnes, Ghost Sex, Hair-pulling, Haunting, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Moral Ambiguity, Online Dating, Online Friendship, Oral Sex, Possession, Rough Oral Sex, Safer Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-24 08:03:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4911736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WillowPerpetua/pseuds/WillowPerpetua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes wandered the earth as a ghost for seventy years. He found solace in the medium, Natasha, who gave him shelter, company, and one day, signed him up for an online dating service in the hope that he might find somebody else to talk to.<br/>Steve was the man he found. </p><p>"Bucky did not know Steve, no, but he knew Steve’s type. He met many men in hostels and train stations, and while he had never before found the courage to touch them—even through somebody else’s hands—he had discovered the uniquely visceral brand of danger that they all craved in common."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fuck_me_barnes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuck_me_barnes/gifts).



> Hi friends. You might have noticed the "Rape/Non-con" tag. Do note that this is due to the fact that Steve does not consent to having sex with Bucky. He does, however, consent enthusiastically to having sex throughout this story.  
> There is a fine line, but I insist on honoring consent throughout all of my stories no matter what. Moral ambiguity can be a tricky subject. Please take care of yourselves.  
> With all my love.

Bucky had been dead for seventy years. He saw regimes rise and fall like the tide, traveled the world without spending a dime, watched decades unfold around him and through it all he remained static. There were beautiful things about his existence. There were terrible things. The truth of the matter, however, was that for Bucky Barnes, Ghost, there wasn’t much to do.

He passed through the kitchen of his home and considered the bowl in the sink. His living housemate, Natasha, had oatmeal for breakfast. He could still remember that taste if he concentrated. It was pasty and flavorless. If there was a food that ghosts could eat, he imagined that fate would be just cruel enough to make it oatmeal. Not so. Even oatmeal was off the menu. Culinary pleasure and all other earthly delights, were unavailable to him. He had not eaten for seven decades.

Bucky shrugged and turned away from the dishes. Being a spectral body excused him from dish duty: one of the perks of being a member of the undead. With great concentration, he picked up his laptop and carried it into the living room.

“Morning.” Natasha said before she took a sip of her coffee.

“Hey.” Bucky said.

“What are you going to do today?” She asked.

“That’s a stupid question. What are you going to do today?”

“It’s not a stupid question. I have a depressed ghost taking up space in my house. The best thing I can do is encourage him to do something. Anything. And I’m going on a date tonight so I’m going to need you to clear out for a while.”

“But you’re going out. Why do I need to clear—Oh.” The realization dawned on Bucky. “I get it.”

“I have a feeling tonight is going to go well for me.” Natasha said. “Really. Well.” She had a look of fierce determination set in her features with which Bucky could not argue.

“Okay. Fine. I’ll find something to do. Maybe the library.” Nobody bothered him there, and the lighting brought out a certain sickly pallor in everybody, so he didn’t look too strange as long as he hid behind the stacks.

Natasha surveyed him over the top of her coffee cup and he felt as if he were underneath a microscope. He hated this feeling and he so often felt it when Natasha looked at him.

“What?” Bucky asked.

“Let me borrow your computer.” She said.

“Why? You have one of your own.” Bucky said. It was not hard for him to grasp the technology of the day. He watched humanity progress, he could see where it was going better than many of the living could. He was, however pleased with himself that he could touch it and hold it. Manipulating solid objects was hard sometimes and he held tight to the items that did not fight him. His computer and the phone that Natasha bought for him were high on the list of favored items.

“Yes,” Natasha agreed, “but this is how we are getting you out of my hair tonight.” She took the computer from him gently, careful to avoid touching any of the places where his skin would have been, if he had skin.

“Okay. Let’s see…” She hummed to herself while she typed away. “Bucky Barnes. For the sake of our purposes today you’re…” she paused while she typed “twenty-six.”

“More or less.” Bucky said. “What are you getting at?” He asked. Natasha angled the screen toward him. Displayed there was a series of boxes for information such as name, age, occupation, etcetera. “What is this?” He asked.

“A dating site.” Natasha said, simply.

“And you’re doing this why? No, don’t use that picture of me, for Christ’s sake, Natasha, I’m practically transparent.”

“ _We’re_ doing this because you need somebody else to talk to. A lone medium isn’t doing the trick, buddy, and it’s cheaper than therapy.” Natasha said, while she entered Bucky’s location into the correct box. “And, look, if I use this filter the vase behind your face just looks like a shadow—there.” She swapped the picture out. “All fixed.”

“I don’t understand, but you’re the smart one.”

“That’s damn right.” Natasha said. “Alright. That’s the basics. Start looking around for somebody cute, local, and available. You have a few hours.”

Bucky took his computer back to his bedroom, a carefully organized guest room, just in case company might deign to drop by for Natasha someday. Nobody ever arrived to visit Natasha, and although Bucky could not sleep in the traditional sense, he enjoyed the idea of a room to his own.

He set the computer down carefully and perched on the bed to scroll through the results. His matches. As if he could find a match among the living. To his surprise, there they were. Face after face of hopeful candidates looking to find love, or something like it.

As he scrolled through the results, he noticed the trend that many of these pictures displayed torsos instead of faces. Bucky felt a creeping chill crawl across his back. This was a game for the living in more ways than he could have prepared for. The window next to his bed rattled and the springs under his mattress quivered. He could not do this.

But there was one face that he liked. Bucky was drawn back to it over and over, hovering over it. DodgersFan1918 looked like somebody he knew, somebody from another life. He wanted to reach into the screen and touch that face in a way that he had not wanted to touch another person in decades. The swell of feeling cascaded within him and was smothered just as suddenly by a blip of noise from the speakers of the laptop.

**DodgersFan1918: Hey! Cool profile. Welcome to New York. It can be hard to meet people here. Let me know if you want to get a drink sometime, or coffee if that’s your thing. Hope to hear back from you :)**

Bucky thought, looking at the message. What did he _say_ to that? I have actually lived here for longer than you or your parents have been alive, but thanks for the encouragement? Searching for answers, Bucky checked the profile that Natasha helped him set up. Sure enough, in the area where he was supposed to summarize himself, she wrote that Bucky was new to New York. Well, he thought, it would explain why he didn’t know anybody.

**Bucky: Thanks. I’ve never really tried online dating. I’m not sure what I’m doing, honestly.**

**DodgersFan1918: Seems like you’re doing it just fine.**

**Bucky: You’re the one doing all the work.**

**DodgersFan1918: Maybe not if I play my cards right.**

**Bucky: Oh you didn’t! I can’t tell if that was bad or brilliant.**

**DodgersFan1918: Can’t it be both?**

**Bucky: You got me there. Okay, what do you do?**

**DodgersFan1918: Honestly?**  
**You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you. It involves a lot of jumping out of airplanes.**  
 **What do you do?**

**Bucky: You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But there are fewer airplanes.**

**DodgersFan1918: That’s fair enough. I’m have some time off right now and I like not having to think about my job too much. You deserve the same.**

**Bucky: I think I can manage that. We don’t have to talk about work.**

Never mind that Bucky had not worked in decades. He realized that he was smiling. The little screen in front of him was not the only thing glowing in the room, he felt like he could light up a football stadium. He saw the little animation signifying that Steve was typing and awaited his reply.

**DodgersFan1918: Have I earned your name yet? If you don’t mind me asking.**

**Bucky: Sorry! I should have said. It’s Bucky.**

**DodgersFan1918: Bucky? Really? I thought that might have been a reference to something I didn’t get.**

**Bucky: No. Just my name.**

**DodgersFan1918: I like it.**

Bucky didn’t know what to say to that. He was never very good at taking compliments, but this one felt intensely personal. Perhaps it was just that he was out of practice. After all, Natasha was hardly gushy about him.

**Bucky: Thanks.**

**DodgersFan1918: What are you doing tonight?**

**Bucky: I don’t know. My roommate has pretty much kicked me out of the house because she has a date. It is going to get awkward here.**

**DodgersFan1918: Meet me for a drink. You won’t have to worry about it for a while.**

**Bucky: It’s a great idea, but I should probably go into work and catch up on some stuff.**

**DodgersFan1918: On a Saturday night?**

**Bucky: Remember how I said you wouldn’t believe me?**

**DodgersFan1918: Suit yourself. The offer stands if you change your mind.**

**Bucky: I will keep it in mind.**

**DodgersFan1918: Good luck with the roommate.**

They signed off, and although Bucky had no breath to speak of, he felt breathless.

That night, a half hour before the doorbell was due to be pressed by a well-dressed suitor who could not hope to be half as good as Natasha deserved, because no such man existed in the world, Bucky vanished from their home.

He found himself wandering the endless aisles of a grocery store. He loved grocery stores. The way produce failed to have any time or season spoke to him. There was once a growing season for tomatoes or for peaches. Now, they could be purchased anytime the desire arose. Bucky found a disturbing kind of comfort in the immediacy of globalization, but he tried never to cling to the past.

He strode down the aisle that housed the candy bars. Natasha liked these. He considered picking one up for her. He could do it, he had money in his pocket and there were machines now that allowed transactions to be done entirely in private. Sure, he thought. _Why not_?

A man walked past him and brushed against the place where his right arm would have been, if he had a right arm. A nauseous wave of horror swooped through them both. It was a sick, panicked feeling that he knew from years of these accidental touches. This was why not. This was why never. This was why he stayed quietly and politely locked away in his house and why he would never, above all things, go out for a drink with a man like Steve.

The unfortunate innocent who brushed against the ghost considering candy bars looked over his shoulder at Bucky as if he had been stabbed. There were no words for such a betrayal of social niceties. There were no words among the living for what had just happened. _Contact._ That was the word. Brief. Brutal. Unpleasant. Bucky did not apologize as he picked up the Snickers for Natasha.

He wandered up and down the streets for a while and let his mind wander separately. There was not much left for it to do. The contact lingered in it like a bad aftertaste. He could still feel that man’s vibrations in his being. That man wanted very much to touch someone, but it certainly had not been Bucky. He felt into the man’s consciousness, against his better judgement. Bucky had not done this in years. He settled himself down in the mouth of an alley near home. Nobody would notice him here.

The contact he made was strong. He could feel the man. He could see and smell and even taste everything the man could. It was like being along for the ride, present in all the things the man could experience. Lifelike. These forays into the world by proxy could only be kept up for so many hours, Bucky knew, but it was nice to remember what it felt like to be alive now and then. It couldn’t hurt to give himself a night. Just one. For old time’s sake.

His host took his phone out of his pocket and opened an app. A picture appeared.

 _No_ , his host thought. _Not this one._ A picture of a different man took its place. _Nah_ , his host thought again, _Not this one either_. Steve’s picture appeared.

Bucky thought.

 _Not sure_. His host thought.

 _Yes, him._ Bucky thought. _You want this one._

 _Not really, he has more muscle than I like._ His host thought.

An errant idea ran through Bucky’s mind. Possession. He was already more than half-way there. Arguing with his host was a fruitless effort. He might as well take that final step and grab the wheel for himself. There was no use in fighting the whole night. As if his host heard the train of thought, he felt the tension of the body drain away and give itself over to Bucky’s control. The mind slackened and dozed. It slept in a corner, unharmed except for the presence of another conscious being in its shell. _Thank you,_ Bucky thought.

Now that he was in possession of the body, he felt it, from the roots of the hair all the way down to the toes which he wiggled in their shoes. He felt heavier, more real, than he could remember feeling in a long time. It felt good. He stood up straight. This body was used to slouching. He picked the head up high and cracked the neck, stretched the arms out above his head, shook the hands—his hands for the time being— as he brought them down to his sides.

He took a look at the phone again. Steve’s face still glowed up at him through the darkness and there was no residual glow from his hand. He liked this feeling. He nodded to himself. He could do this.

 

He arrived at Steve’s apartment building with an anticipatory buzz filling up the entirety of him. He bounced on his toes outside of the building. This body was just a tiny bit shorter than the one he once inhabited. His limbs were only slightly thinner. When he looked down at the hands that were now his, they surprised him for a moment not because they felt foreign, but because they fit so well. He pressed the button and waited.

“Hey, come on up.” The voice, Steve’s voice, came back so much deeper than he imagined.

“Thanks.” Bucky said. The door buzzed. He walked inside with purpose, as if this were something he did every day.

When he reached the door that Steve promised he would be behind, he felt the lurch of nervousness behind his bellybutton. What if he couldn’t do it? He had not touched another person in so long. Technically, he did not even know if he was a person anymore. And even if he could touch, this was more than touching, wasn’t it? The thought of what this was drove him forward into action. His fist met the solid mass of the door and he knocked three times.

Steve’s picture did not do him justice. He stepped into the hall to greet Bucky, a wall of muscle that towered over Bucky in such close proximity. Bucky took a step back to size him up properly. The overwhelming fact that could not be ignored about Steve was the sheer size of him. He filled the doorway behind him with shoulders that Bucky wanted to climb. He met Bucky’s eyes and smiled.

“Hey.” He said. In person, his voice was smooth and just as deep. It fit him.

“Hi.” Bucky said. His voice was of little consequence. It would not be his in a few hours.

“You want to come in?” Steve asked. His eyebrows rose as he asked the question and a smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

Bucky nodded. He made it as far as Steve’s doorway before the warmth of his body drew him in. The smell of him alone, so clean and good, but by no means sweet, was enough. Bucky needed this. They did not make it all the way into the apartment before their lips chased each other down. Steve’s lips were soft, but there was little softness in the way their mouths moved against each other, with vicious determination. It was an explosion of a kiss that burned up and left them gasping. He felt Steve’s hand run along his arm and push him inside. He almost forgot how to move his feet until Steve reminded him.

“Okay.” Steve said once Bucky made it all the way into his apartment. “Can I get you anything? Water? You want a beer?”

 _Oh god yes._ Bucky thought, he hadn’t drunk water in longer than he could recall, but there were more pressing matters at the moment.

“No, thanks.” Bucky said. “I’m okay.”

Steve eyed him up and down, eyes heavy lidded and lips still red and swollen from their crushing kiss in the hallway. “Better than.” He said.

“Let’s find out.” Bucky said.

“My room is that way.” Steve jerked his head to the left, toward the door that stood ajar.

“Good.” Bucky said. He stepped toward Steve again. He could see himself, not himself, reflected back in the glassy, expanding darkness of Steve’s eyes, and it felt like falling. As quickly as falling he was back in Steve’s arms again, lips against lips. The feeling was less frantic this time, longer and more languid.

He mapped out the feeling of it. Steve’s kisses were generous, even for a stranger. They parted to throw shirts to the ground. Without realizing that he had done so, Bucky reached out a hand to touch Steve’s skin. There was so much of it, he thought, all of it so warm, sun kissed and smooth. His hand grazed across his chest toward a nipple that hardened in the cool air around it. Steve’s eyes fluttered shut at the touch.

The smallest reactions drove Bucky wild. He pressed both hands against Steve’s chest and pushed him backward, toward the support of the wall behind them, and dropped to his knees in front of Steve. From the ground, he looked up, as if to ask permission.

“Hang on.” Steve said. He brought Bucky back to his feet with one hand carefully cradling the back of his skull. “In here.” Bucky followed Steve into his bedroom. Neatly furnished, but with more things than Bucky owned. _Of course_ , Bucky thought to himself. _He’s alive_. He tried not to think about it anymore, and carefully avoided the gaze of the faces in the framed pictures.

Steve returned to him with a couple of foil wrapped condoms.

“Are these okay with you?” Steve asked.

“Of course.” Bucky said.

“Can we still?” Steve began he glanced downward, toward the bulge in his pants. He wanted this nearly as badly as Bucky. Bucky pushed Steve backward again, onto the bed this time, and dropped to his knees in front of him.

“You want me to blow you?” He asked. “Is that it?”

“Oh fuck, yeah.” Steve said. He grabbed the sheets to his sides. Bucky shook his head and put his hands over Steve’s.

“Sounds good, but you gotta do something for me.”

“What’s that?” Steve asked.

“Pull my hair.”

“Think I can manage that.” Steve said.

Bucky did not know Steve, no, but he knew Steve’s type. He met many men in hostels and train stations, and while he had never before found the courage to touch them—even through somebody else’s hands—he had discovered the uniquely visceral brand of danger that they all craved in common.

Bucky brought Steve’s hands to the back of his head and felt the pressure there, a human touch, warm and invited, nothing like the cold distant feeling of ghostly contact. He leaned back against it while he undid the closure of Steve’s pants, relished the sound of the breath that escaped Steve’s lips, and pushed them down his thighs just far enough. He rolled the condom on without ceremony and followed with his mouth.

Bucky felt Steve’s fingertips dig into his scalp, the scrape of nails against the flesh there. He sensed that his movements, the way he hollowed his cheeks or moved his tongue, were rewarded by Steve’s long tapered fingers tangling themselves in his hair and tugging harder. Steve held on tight while Bucky worked him over. He slid his lips up and down over and over until he was lost in the sensation of it. He ran his hands along Steve’s thighs and wrapped his fingers around the base of Steve’s cock.

The sounds that Steve made when Bucky lapped lightly at Steve’s balls was heaven. He brought his focus there while his hands kept up the steady beat established by his mouth. All the while. The hands in his hair were careful not to direct, but to encourage his effort. Bucky moaned, delighted at the sensations. The hardness of both the floor under his knees and the cock between his legs. The sensations, all of them, felt like fireworks shooting through his nervous system.

“Okay,” Steve said. He opened his hand and rested his palm on the back of Bucky’s head to steady him. “Okay.” He said again. “Hang on.”

Bucky glanced up at him and saw a look of deep concentration on his face. Steve took a deep breath through his nose and let it out slowly through his mouth. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he worked to catch his breath he stared up at the ceiling, exposing miles of chest and neck from where Bucky sat on the floor. His cock still rested, hard and red and glistening with Bucky’s spit, between his legs.

“Come up here.” Steve said, glancing at the space next to him on the bed. He shed his pants, already half-way down his thighs and useless.

Bucky followed suit as he rose, discarding the remaining layers of clothing, to join Steve on the bed. He noticed with a removed level of interest that this body’s penis was circumcised. He tried to react as if it were not the first time he had seen it.

“I want you to fuck me.” Steve said. He shucked off the condom, unfilled but unneeded, and handed Bucky one of his own along with a bottle of lube. He turned over, and watched Bucky’s reaction from over his shoulder.

“Jesus.” Bucky said under his breath, catching the full effect of Steve’s ass.

“Is this how you want me?” Steve asked. Unable to answer, feeling the complete failure of human language not for the first time, Bucky leaned forward and let his tongue answer in another way. “Oh.” Steve said, surprise and pleasure rose in equal parts in his voice. “I guess so.” Steve leaned back against Bucky’s face and let Bucky grip his hips to steady him. Bucky tasted a trace of something chemical on his tongue as he pressed against Steve, not familiar but not unpleasant. Steve had prepared for this, Bucky realized. 

“Oh fuck.” Steve said, “That mouth.”

Bucky drew away for breath and smiled. “You already did that.” He said, and slapped Steve’s ass. The moan that smack elicited rivaled any Steve made so far that night. “Hmm.” Bucky considered the implications for a moment before returning to the task at hand. Steve had been explicit in his request. He wanted Bucky to fuck him, and that was exactly what Bucky intended to do. “You think you’re good, or do you want me to prep you some more?” Bucky asked.

“No, I’m ready.” Steve said, his voice higher than it had been all night. “Please.” He said.

There was no resisting the request. He aligned himself and entered Steve in a smooth, agonizingly slow movement of his hips that pushed a breath from his lungs and a distant sigh from his lips. The sensation was at once so familiar that it felt like coming home and, at the same time, like nothing he had ever felt before.

Steve was the first to move, fucking himself on Bucky’s cock, doing all the work for him. Bucky let him.

“Oh yeah.” Bucky said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Just like that, baby.”

“You afraid you’re going to wake somebody up?” Steve asked. His tone was casual, despite the slight hitch in it when he pushed himself back against Bucky. He smiled over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow and moved faster, committing to the movements of his hips. Bucky let out a low, guttural moan that resonated between them and filled up the air around them. “That’s what I thought.” Steve said as he moved.

Bucky caught Steve’s hips and thrust his own forward, snapping them together in a pace that brought beads of sweat to the surface of his back, neck, and shoulders. He felt it drip down his forehead and behind his ears and pressed on as the sensation—the wholeness and utter bliss of being inside Steve—carried him past reason and into a drive that was purely instinct.

Bucky came inside Steve, wrapped around him, lost to thought and reason. For the first time since his death, he closed his eyes and saw nothing: not the overwhelming vastness of the universe, nor the terrible chaos of life swirling around him, impossible to resist. He was inside Steve, a part of him in a small way, and he felt complete.

The world came back to Bucky slowly, in pieces. He pulled out and let Steve turn around in his arms. Bucky opened his eyes first, and saw Steve below him, equally thrown into bliss and taken from the harshness of reality. The blush on his cheeks suited him, Bucky thought. He felt the warmth between them, the sticky slick wetness of their sweat and Steve’s semen.

Steve opened his eyes, _so blue,_ and smiled. Bucky returned it, lazy and slow. They both knew the same truth: they would have to move sometime soon. They would have to find it in themselves to clean up and carry on into the night, but in this moment, this was all they wanted. Bucky’s head lowered onto Steve’s shoulder and his breathing steadied.

Bucky left the man’s body with a parting thought of apology to its owner. The man would remember last night, of course. He would remember his actions as if his choices had been his own. There would be no lasting harm, but Bucky knew the neglect that he was about to inflict when he vanished. He wished for the best and thought himself away.


	2. Chapter Two

“Oh my god, Natasha.” Bucky said, the next morning as he poured a cup of coffee for her. His hand lost consistency momentarily in his excitement and he slopped a bit over the side of the cup before regaining control. “You won’t believe the night I had.”

“Nugh—“She grunted at him, swatting her hand through the air. “Not so loud.” Her hair was mussed in the back in a familiar way, and although she shushed him, she did so in a good tempered way.

“You and me both, I see.” Bucky said, lowering the coffee before her at her customary seat at the table. “You want to go first?”

“No.” She said. “It was just Clint. You pretty much know him.” She said, with a lopsided smile firmly in place, no matter how hard she tried to shake it. Bucky did know Clint, if only from the occasional glimpses around corners. He seemed alright, which after as long as Bucky had been around, was a difficult thing to achieve in Bucky’s book. “Tell me what happened. Did you talk to somebody? Could they see you?” She asked.

“It was so much better.” Bucky said. He leaned forward and launched into a detailed account of the previous night.

“Wait.” Natasha said. “You made Contact? That must have been awful.”

“Yeah, but listen—“He said, and then continued on about finding Steve and everything they did together.

“Bucky.” A pregnant pause filled the air. Natasha was trying to find the words to express herself. “That’s fucked up.” She said at last, as she set her coffee cup down on the table. “You can’t just go around possessing dudes and hooking up, that’s—“

“Why not?” Bucky asked.

“Because that’s gross.” Natasha said. “You realize nobody consented to what you did last night, right?”

It felt like running headfirst into a brick wall. Natasha was right. She was always right—Natasha had been right about Myspace, she had been right and bootcut jeans, and yes, now she was right about possessed hookups. He nodded and sank lower in his chair.

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” Natasha agreed. “You can’t do that again.”

 

An hour later, Bucky found himself online. He had no intention of checking in on Steve again, but Natasha’s words echoed in his head and grew into a cancerous worry that spread across him. Steve was online. It couldn’t hurt to say hello, Bucky thought. He needed to know if Steve was alright, if last night had hurt him somehow he had to find out, to make amends in any way that he could.

**Bucky: Hey there.**

**DodgersFan1918: Hey, yourself!**

**Bucky: How’s it going?**

Now here was the trouble. There had to be a way to breach the subject, but the subtleties of online communication eluded him.

**DodgersFan1918: Really good! Had a great night last night.**

**Bucky: Oh yeah?**

**DodgersFan1918: Yeah. Didn’t expect it, but this guy came over and it felt like I had known him my whole life, you know? Just…**

**DodgersFan1918: I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I just feel like I can trust you.**

**Bucky: Steve, I know we don’t know each other very well, but I promise you can trust me.**

**DodgersFan1918: Thanks Bucky. Okay. So, I have had hookups, and I have fucked around and whatever. It wasn’t like that. This guy. He showed up last night, and it was unreal. He fucked me like I haven’t ever been fucked before. It was mindblowing. If I could relive a single night for the rest of my life, forever, it would be that. Holy shit.**

**Bucky: Really?**

**DodgersFan1918: Yeah.**

**Bucky: So are you going to see him again?**

**DodgersFan1918: That’s the thing. Probably not.**

**Bucky: What happened?**

**DodgersFan1918: The next morning it was weird. Weirder than morning-afters usually are, I mean. He woke up really early, like 5:00, and I wanted to make him breakfast, but it was like he couldn’t get out of my place fast enough. I don’t know. Really awkward.**

**Bucky: That sounds awkward. Maybe he is just an early riser?**

**DodgersFan1918: Hope so.**

**Bucky: Unrelated question, can I ask?**

**DodgersFan1918: Dude, I just told you about my hookup last night. Feel free.**

**Bucky: haha, okay. What’s with your name on here? I assume you like the Dodgers, but why 1918?**

**DodgersFan1918: Oh, that? Haha, nostalgia. It was my house number growing up. Why?**

**Bucky: Just curious about it. Wondered if the year 1918 had some significance to you or something.**

**DodgersFan1918: Nope, not really. I just use this name for pretty much everything online.**

**Bucky: I totally get that. Obviously. Didn’t even try to come up with a name, lol.**

**DodgersFan1918: So what are you up to tonight?**

**Bucky: Look at you! Telling me all about your roll in the hay last night and then trying to get a date with me tonight.**

**DodgesFan1918: Oh no! I just meant… Nevermind. Going to go crawl under a rock now.**

**Bucky: Come back! I was kidding.**

**DodgersFan1918: Thank god. I just wanted to see if you felt like hanging out or something. As friends. Not a date or anything.**

Bucky felt the smile tug at the corners of his mouth and caught his reflection in the screen of his computer. Steve made him smile like this, honest and real. He wanted to see him, to laugh with him in person and talk without the restraints of typing. Wanted to. Couldn’t. He shook his head, although Steve was not there to see him.

**Bucky: Sorry. Early morning at work tomorrow. Can’t hang out, but I am happy to keep talking on here.**

**DodgersFan1918: Of course! Just thought I’d check.**

**Bucky: No problem. What kind of movies do you like?**

In nearly a century, Bucky found one constant in human interaction: Cinema. Sitting in a darkened room, staring at glowing people illuminated on a screen, not only could he imagine himself away into the lives of others, he could spend an hour or two in the company of the living without attracting attention to himself. Bucky loved the pictures.

They spent the next hour talking about movies. Steve told him about his short career in Hollywood—short being the operative word—and his lifelong love of the silver screen. Bucky immediately went to IMDB to look up Steve’s roles. They were just as bad as Steve told him, mostly short speaking parts or credited extra roles. He played a lot of soldiers in war movies.

It was Steve who suggested they watch something together, synced up from the comfort of their own computers, in their respective houses. It was Bucky who found the film. They each popped their own popcorn. It was a date without a date, and neither had to worry about such troubles as combing their hair or accidentally reminding the other of the inevitability of death.

The nagging questions about last night no longer troubled Bucky. He was confident in himself, and in Steve, and in their choices. The man who sat in his home, talking to Bucky and laughing at their shared viewing of silent movies was alright, and so too was Bucky in his own way.

**DodgersFan1918: Hey this was really great. Thank you.**

**Bucky: Don’t thank me. I just watched a movie in my house.**

**DodgersFan1918: You know what I mean.**

**Bucky: I had a good time, too.**

**DodgersFan1918: Guess you probably have to get to bed.**

Bucky glanced at the time, the 2:00 glaring at him from the unused bedside alarm clock meant nothing to him, but he had a fictional job to maintain.

**Bucky: Oh, damn. Guess so.**

**DodgersFan1918: Shame it’s not my bed.**

**Bucky: Don’t push your luck, Steve.**

**DodgersFan1918: Can’t blame me for trying, Bucky.**

**Bucky: At 2:00 in the morning I damn well can. Goodnight.**

**DodgersFan1918: Sweet dreams.**

Bucky took a walk that night under the stars, not that there were stars to be seen with the light pollution and the smog and haze that blocked out the view. Still, he enjoyed knowing that stars were up there, hidden out of view but present. He related.

Sometimes, Bucky wondered why he was still in New York. He traveled all over the world enough times to know that he was not tied to this city. He could go anywhere, but the result was more or less similar: He remained.

His body decomposed long ago, buried with the rest of his captured unit. They didn’t make it out of Italy. The difference was that none of Bucky Barnes made it out of Italy. He woke up dead on a table in a lab, alone. The facility, evacuated. His companions, dead. And there he was lying on a table, and standing above himself, and very dead—the only soul left in the building.

Death was freeing for Bucky Barnes. After the worst happened to him, what more did he have to fear? He had no need for food or water, he did not sleep, and he could disappear if anybody caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of their eye. He could go anywhere. He could do anything. There was nothing left for Bucky, and so there was everything for him to do. For a while, at least.

He was like a child who is told he has no bedtime and may eat as much candy as he wishes. It got old real fast.

He was the one who sought out mediums first. He felt their tug like the phantom ring of a telephone in another room. There were some people who had a calling for speaking to him, not that he understood why they wanted to. Not that he had anything worthwhile to contribute to the conversation. Natasha was the first to sit with him in silence without demanding anything, and he supposed that was why he liked her.

“What do you think of Ouija boards?” Natasha said when Bucky arrived back home. Bucky turned on his heel and made to leave again. “No. For the shop. I need to look credible.” Bucky sighed, long and heavy, and hung his head before he trudged back into the house. Natasha’s cat was out, a rare occurrence when Bucky was around.

Natasha shuffled a stack of tarot cards in front of her. The cat wound its way around her ankles and rubbed its head affectionately before hissing at Bucky and darting to Natasha’s room. Bucky put a hand out to stop her from setting the cards down. She would not touch him.

“I’m not reading for other people.” She said, her voice took on a defensive lilt. “Not really, I mean.” She shrugged. “I just need something to do other than sitting there with a cup of coffee while I tell people things they don’t want to hear. It doesn’t go over as well without some kind of mystical barrier.

“Not Ouija boards.” Bucky said. “Just set the mood with candles, incense, and crystals, or whatever. Make sure that cat pokes its ugly face out sometimes. If you want I’ll stop by and say spooky things over their shoulder. Tell people about their old dog Rover remembering them. Whatever pays the bills.”

“Having you around does not pay the bills.” Natasha said. “And don’t call my cat ugly.”

“Good talk.” Bucky said, heading back toward the solitude of his room.

A day passed. A blink of an eye for Bucky. He could lose focus on the goings-on around him to discover that weeks had transpired while he had not been paying attention. A day was nothing. The gentle warmth and hum of his computer was a welcome feeling as the weather grew colder and the nights got dark earlier.

 

**DodgersFan1918: Have you ever watched Twin Peaks?**

The message was waiting for him on his screen when Bucky logged in, but it had only been sent minutes prior to its discovery. Bucky saw the little signifier that Steve was online and smiled down at the keyboard. It was like a chance encounter, running into him out in the world, but better. He could actually communicate with Steve here.

**Bucky: Can’t say I have. Is it good?**

**DodgersFan1918: Sharon keeps talking about it.**

**Bucky: Work Sharon?**

**DodgersFan1918: Yeah. She says it is old and weird, so I thought you would like it.**

**DodgersFan1918: omg. Not that you are old and weird. That came out totally wrong.**

If you only knew. Bucky thought.

**Bucky: We should watch it.**

**DodgersFan1918: You free now?**

**Bucky: Sure.**

They started it, and it was, indeed, old and weird. The idea of death never did trouble Bucky. How could it? But grief: Grief was a different monster entirely. He had a family, and they mourned for him, but there was only so much grief that blew through the world, like air exiting a balloon, short and powerful and not especially graceful, and then it was over.

Bucky was not the type to dwell on the emotions of humans for the most part, but sometimes he wished, in a small voice all the way at the back of his mind, that somebody still grieved for Bucky Barnes.

This show made him wildly uncomfortable.

**DodgersFan1918: What did you think?**

**Bucky: I don’t know.**

**DodgersFan1918: Willing to give it another shot for a few more episodes?**

**Bucky: Only if it is an excuse to keep talking to you.**

**DodgersFan1918: Should I be flattered?**

**Bucky: Well, you already have a pretty big head as it is. I don’t know if I should go on stroking your ego.**

**DodgersFan1918: Well, shit. That was a bit suggestive.**

**Bucky: It was, wasn’t it?**

**DodgersFan1918: Should you go on stroking something else?**

**Bucky: Do you have something in mind?**

**DodgersFan1918: I think you know.**

**Bucky: Well, my roommate just adopted a cat, so…**

**DodgersFan1918: God damn it. Don’t tell me I have to compete with a pussy.**

**Bucky: Actually, no. The cat doesn’t like me.**

**DodgersFan1918: That’s brutal.**

**Bucky: Dude, right? It’s wicked mean.**

**DodgersFan1918: I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you are staying in tonight though.**

**Bucky: Yeah. I think so.**

**DodgersFan1918: Can’t blame a guy for trying.**

**Bucky: I hope you will keep trying.**

**DodgersFan1918: I just might. Goodnight, Bucky.**

**Bucky: Have a good night, yourself, Steve.**

**DodgersFan1918: Oh, I plan on it ;)**

  
Bucky signed off and paced back and forth in the space of his room until it felt stifling. He had to get out, if only to burn this energy in a larger arena. He passed by Natasha.

“Oh dude.” Natasha said. “Tell me you’re not sticking around tonight.”

“What? Why?” Bucky asked, irritable.

“Because your energy bouncing off the walls. Seriously, there’s like, twelve of you in here. Just go _do_ something for shit’s sake.” Natasha said, waving him out the door. With that banishment from the house, it would be harder to go back, though not impossible. Their relationship was a special one, and Bucky knew Nat would never truly lock him out, not for real, but he felt he had to find something to occupy his time for a while, at least until he had sorted out some of this pent up energy.

Maybe he should stop talking to Steve, Bucky thought as he walked. He couldn’t deny that Steve made him feel things, things that he had forgotten he could feel, and with an intensity that had disappeared from his existence for so long. His mind wandered while his feet did the same. He had not realized where they were taking him until he arrived. He was standing outside of Steve’s door. Bucky shook his head.

“Fuck.” He said to himself.

A man arrived at the door and pressed the button.

“Hey, uh, it’s Peter? I’m here to meet Steve.” The man said.

“Cool. I’ll buzz you up.” Steve’s voice sounded from the speaker and sent a flutter of through Bucky that, in turn, sent a rush of static through the box mounted on the wall. A moment later the buzz blared and the door unlocked.

Bucky did it before his rational mind could think better. He screwed up his face and braced for the worst. The icy, tingling, breath taking feeling of Contact swept through them both in a single horrifying moment. Bucky wished he could take it back. He wanted out the moment he was in.

 _Oh god. I’m sorry. This was a mistake._ He thought to himself as the body of his host lurched inside the building.

 _What the—What the hell, man? What is this?!_ The host, Peter asked him. He spun on the spot and looked down at his hands, as if there would be some observable difference.

 _Well, I don’t know how to tell you this, but, I’m… Well, you’re… This…_ Bucky tried and failed.

 _Wait. Are you reading my mind?_ Peter asked. _That’s so cool!_

_No._

_Hang on. Tell something only I would know. Wait. That’s—that’s not how that would work, is it? Okay. Tell me something cool. Do you know anything about dinosaurs? Space? Shit, man. This is fucking awesome. I’ve got somebody in my noggin._

_No._

_Yeah. I mean, unless I went nuts, but I think one of the signifying factors about that would be that I wouldn’t ask myself that question. You know?_

_No. Peter, listen to me._ Bucky finally broke through Peter’s train of thought. _I’m possessing you._

 _Really?_ Peter asked.

 _Yeah._ Bucky answered.

_That’s so—_

_Cool. I know._ Bucky interrupted him, desperate to finish this conversation.

 _Wait, why?_ Peter asked.

 _Exactly. Thanks for asking. That guy who you are about to go hook up with? You are about to go have casual sex with that guy, Steve, right?_ Bucky asked, just to clarify. A rush of doubt flooded him with the knowledge that this could get really awkward if Peter was there for any other reason.

 _Well, yeah. But I mean, if some dude is making contact from the other side to tell me not to, I think I’ll listen._ Peter replied. Bucky had the distinct impression that Peter was not one-hundred percent sure about his choice. The promise of Steve only a few stories away was still a strong pull. Bucky understood.

 _No. No. I_ want _you to sleep with him, if that’s what you want. I just kind of want to—how do I put this—I want to join in?_

 _Like a three way?_ Peter asked, interest piqued.

_Not exactly. I want to borrow the keys to your body for a while. When it is over, you will wake up with full memory of everything you did and I won’t be around. You won’t ever have to deal with me again, if you don’t want. What do you say?_

Peter thought it over, and to his credit, he was careful. He sat on the staircase to parcels the deal out, considering the loopholes. Bucky waited in patient silence and gave Peter all the time he needed, careful not to rush him. If he wanted to be able to look Natasha in the eye tomorrow, this had to be Peter’s choice alone.

 _Here’s the deal._ Peter responded to Bucky, once he made up his mind. _No creepy shit. No weird satanic rituals or cult stuff or anything like that. You may not do anything that I would not reasonably agree to if I were there. No blood. Actually, let’s make that no bodily fluids of any kind except for the obvious. No BDSM. This is a one-night stand and you two haven’t discussed these things in advance so you shouldn’t be getting into that kind of thing anyway. You can’t use me in the commission of a crime, unless you want to smoke a little weed, that’s cool. Don’t kill Steve or anybody else. Give my body back tomorrow morning, alive and well. Did I miss anything?_

 _That was very thorough._ Bucky told Peter without a trace of regret. He could keep to those terms. _I promise to abide by all your rules._ Bucky meant his promise.

_In that case, have at it._

Bucky felt Peter go lax in a peaceful way. He slipped into his trunk and limbs, all the way down into his toes and fingers like settling into the driver’s seat of a new car. He liked the way Peter felt. He was bigger than the man from before, there was more of him to move around, but the body felt more powerful. He was stronger, faster, and there was something about his face that felt like smiling. When Bucky caught his reflection in the shiny elevator doors as he rode up to Steve’s apartment, he noticed that he was quite handsome.

 _No wonder he smiles._ Bucky thought.

As he ascended to Steve’s floor, he checked Peter’s phone.

**Steve: Did you get lost? lol**

 “I was starting to think you weren’t coming.” Steve said when Bucky arrived at his door a moment later, but his eyes remained soft and welcoming, just the way Bucky remembered them. He felt as if a knot wound up in his chest untied itself the moment Steve opened his door. Although they had been talking online only a few hours ago, the reassurance of his face swept over Bucky in an unspeakable way. “You still want to come in?” Steve asked and stepped aside.

Bucky nodded, wordless but quite clear in meaning. 

“I think I’ve seen you around.” Steve told him. “Which gym do you go to?” The question made Bucky let out a barking laugh. It is the hearty kind that erupts from his stomach, true and loud.

“Whichever.” He says, hoping that’s true of his host. “Doesn’t matter much to me, really.” Something in Steve’s mind latched onto the idea that he knew Peter upon seeing him, and maybe that was true, perhaps he did know if from around. It would make this an encounter to laugh about someday on the train when they ran into each other and put two and two together. Something in Bucky believed that was not the case, however.

Steve was remembering Bucky, he was sure.

“May I?” Steve asked, stepping in close. He was close enough to touch, close enough to reach out and put one warm hand on Bucky’s chin, tilting it up. Close enough for Bucky to count every one of Steve’s long eyelashes if he wanted to.

“Please do.” Bucky replied in a hoarse whisper. Steve stepped closer still, the warmth of his body radiating off of him and clinging to every atom that made up Bucky. He closed his eyes as they touched and locked the feeling away for later.

It changed in the space of a moment. From chaste, pure loveliness to the rapid fire frantic kisses that left them both breathless, with clothes strewn around them on the floor. Bucky had no spare time to consider how quickly the chemical reaction happened between them, only that he _wanted._ This was what he wanted. The want was so strong, magnetic and indecent. Obscene.

Steve gasped against his lips as they parted for the first time and smoothed his palm against the back of Bucky’s head. Bucky let his head fall against the touch and his eyes closed without conscious thought from the rest of him. They moved onto the couch, hands roaming and exploring in a crazed, frantic way. They hardly cared what they touched as long as they touched each other.

And then Steve’s hand came to rest between Bucky’s legs, and suddenly Bucky cared _very much_ what Steve touched. He felt the blood rush southward, down and down, leaving him lightheaded as he grew even harder. He couldn’t say how. He was hard from the moment he saw Steve.

A sound escaped from Bucky’s lips that sounded very much like a whine. His cheeks flushed red with embarrassment, and his eyes opened to meet Steve’s. He crouched over Bucky with a wicked smile on his face.

“You like this?” He asked, his voice lower than before. Bucky nodded. Steve gripped Bucky through his pants, still unopened. Bucky whimpered, an undignified sound that he hardly knew he could make, and pushed his hips up to meet Steve’s hand.

“Yes.” He said. “Yes, Steve, please.” For a moment, he froze, unsure if he had let too much slip, if the jig was up. Had Steve given his name to Peter already? Had Bucky’s use of it, so casual in his own mind that it slipped out without conscious thought, perhaps snagged on something in Steve’s subconscious that might trigger the alarms?

Apparently not. Steve rutted against him harder and groaned possessively against him.

“Take your clothes off.” Steve said, whispered the suggestion in Bucky’s ear so that he could hardly help but comply. He had no intention of doing anything but exactly that, of course, but the moment Steve put it into words, he felt smothered by the layers of fabric that trapped his body. He needed to feel Steve against him, to feel the way they moved together, uninhibited.

Steve leaned back to give him room, to watch as he slid the zipper of his jacket down and pushed it off his shoulders, so much less concerned with the beauty of undressing, with the seduction of it, than he was with being rid of Peter’s clothing. His clumsy fumbling made Steve take pity on him and help, too selfishly invested in the removal of the clothing to wait. The feeling of Steve’s hands sliding along the waistline of his pants sent him into a frenzy.

The feeling of Steve’s hand, the solid warmth of it, closing around his cock, was pure goodness to Bucky. He closed his eyes and went limp, letting out a soft sigh that he no more wanted to suppress than he wanted to slow Steve’s hand. He ran his own hands up and down Steve’s arms, feeling the musculature of his arms—what arms!—and shoulders, as he worked them up and down. He felt the tension building between his legs, his thighs tightening, tensing, the excellent pleasure of it spinning all the way down to his toes.

“Are you close?” Steve whispered in his ear.

Bucky could only nod. “Uh huh.” He managed to pant into Steve’s neck. As suddenly as it began, Steve stopped, leaving Bucky gasping, clenching and unclenching his hands. It took everything in his power not to pull Steve back to him. “Oh god, please don’t stop.” He begged. From Steve’s smile above him, he could tell that Steve liked the way he begged.

“If you want, I’ll finish you off right here.” Steve said. “But, if you want to, I can take you to my room and we can do a whole lot more. It’s up to you.”

Bucky’s mind cleared. The choice was as plain as day. He wanted Steve in any way he could have him. He nodded and sat up straighter.

“Yes. Let’s go.” He said.

“I was hoping you would say that.” Steve said. He rose from the couch and headed off to his room. The challenge for Bucky was pretending he did not already know where it was.


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends! Posting this a day earlier than I intended for kicks and giggles (also because I am having a particularly rough day and few things cheer me up like the satisfaction of posting a new chapter).  
> Enjoy!

When Bucky came, he came hard. After an hour of Steve bringing him to the edge over and over again, only to back away the minute that Bucky’s hands tightened into fists and his legs twitched on either side of Steve’s head, Bucky finally saw the gorgeous blank emptiness that an orgasm with Steve brought him. He disappeared inside his head for an infinitesimal and glorious instant and came back slowly, blinking up at Steve’s perfect, smiling face.

“How was that?” Steve asked. Bucky could hear the bravado, all charm and wit, but there was a layer of care beneath it, true concern for Bucky’s—well, perhaps Peter’s—wellbeing, that cemented the flutter in Bucky’s chest. That flutter, so alive and good, pushed Bucky up, so that his lips met Steve’s. It took them both by surprise.

“Thank you.” Bucky said. “That was. Wow.” He searched for the word as his chest rose and fell, gathering up all the air it could. “Yeah. Wow.” He could not find the words. Steve licked his lips and nodded, as if he understood, as if he had been there. He glanced down between Steve’s legs. Steve was hard again.

“You want me to do something about that?” He asked. Steve followed his gaze and raised an eyebrow.

“Really?” He asked. “I just came.”

“And you’re hard again.” Bucky said, running his hands up Steve’s thighs. Steve groaned, low in his throat at the touch and fell back against his pillows.

“Umph,” The puff of breath escaped him when he hit the bed. “Do your worst.”

Afterward, they dozed together, a sticky tangle of limbs in a fucked out mess on Steve’s bed. Neither Steve nor Bucky had the power of will to move.

“Do you usually get so…?” Bucky asked, raising his head a fraction of an inch off of Steve’s arm to look at him.

“So what?” Steve asked. There was concern stretched across every inch of him.

“I don’t know. Confident? I guess. You seemed like you had it all planed out.”

“Did it bother you?” Steve replied, turning just enough to see Bucky’s face.

“No. Not at all. I liked it.” Bucky said. “Just wondering if that was your style, or if you were working something out on me.” He lay back against Steve’s arm and looked up at the ceiling. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t feel like it.”

Steve’s expression went through a series of phases. Bucky watched it play out across his face without dialogue. He could almost read the story there. Eventually, Steve spoke.

“No.” He said. “I don’t usually get quite so dominant like that in bed, if that’s what you’re asking. I was thinking about somebody.” Steve told the truth. Of course he did, this was Steve. He would spill his guts to the first guy who jumped into his bed, and luckily enough, that guy happened to be Bucky.

“Who is the lucky guy? A friend of yours?” Bucky asked.

“Yeah.” Steve answered.

“You want to fuck him like you fucked me?”

“Yeah.” Steve went quiet after that, lost in his head. Bucky knew better than to try and pull him out of it.

“Thanks.” Bucky said placing a quick peck on Steve’s cheek. “That was good. I’m going to head out.”

As if flipping a switch inside Peter’s mind, Bucky allowed the control of the body to return to its rightful owner. He watched from inside Peter’s head as his shoulders rolled forward, his head tilted to the side, and his smile shifted, ever so slightly.

“Yeah, man. That was cool. No worries. I’ll see you around, bro.” Peter said.

“Huh?” Steve said, sitting up and watching Peter find his clothes.

“Good luck with that dude you’re into. I’m sure he’s gonna be all over you. I mean—“Peter stopped and turned around in his underwear, with his pants half-way up his thighs to give Steve one more look of appreciation. “Fuck. Yeah, he’s going to be into you. If he has eyes.”

Steve gave a small laugh, despite the expression of confusion etched across his features. “Thanks.” He said, pulling on a pair of boxers. He walked Peter to his front door.

“I’ll see you around.” Steve said.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Peter said. “Take care, dude.”

 

When Bucky arrived back at his home, no longer corporeal, but still glowing faintly with the tingling remains of his encounter with Steve, a message was already waiting for him on his computer.

**Dodgersfan1918: Hey, you around?**

It had been sent twenty minutes ago. Only minutes after Bucky left Steve’s place. Bucky smiled to himself.

**Bucky: What’s up?**

**Dodgersfan1918: You know how some people have that friend they can tell anything to?**

**Bucky: Yeah.**

**Dodgersfan1918: My roommate has very strict rules about what we can and cannot share with each other and sometimes I really want to brag about getting laid.**

**Bucky: So…**

**Bucky: Did you?**

**Dodgersfan1918: Fuck. Yes. I. Did.**

**Bucky: Sincerest congratulations from the bottom of my heart.**

If it had not been Bucky in Steve’s bed only an hour ago, he might have been jealous. Hell, a great deal of him was jealous anyway, although he could still recall the feeling of Steve’s body, his warmth and flesh all over him. He could not tell where Steve was going with this. Hadn’t he heard from Steve’s own lips that he wanted Bucky? If he did, he was certainly going about it in a strange way.

And then there was the not insignificant matter of Bucky being dead. Another bridge to cross at a different time, Bucky told himself.

**Bucky: So, how was it?**

**DodgersFan1918: Un-fucking-believable.**

**Bucky: What’s with you, man? Either you’re some kind of sex god or you just have unnaturally good luck when it comes to hookups.**

**DodgersFan1918: Would you believe me if I said both are true?**

**Bucky: Haha, no.**

**DodgersFan1918: Had to try my luck. I don’t know what is going on, honestly. Maybe it is really good luck.**

**Bucky: Good for you.**

**DodgersFan1918: Do I detect a hint of jealousy?**

**Bucky: What? You want me to be jealous?**

**DodgersFan1918: And if I said I did?**

Bucky’s hands stalled on the keyboard. How could he be so free with Steve just an hour before when they were in bed together, but the second he had to write it out, he felt frozen? Throwing caution to the wind, he typed out the words he knew he needed to say.

**Bucky: Alright. Maybe I’m a little bit jealous.**

**DodgersFan1918: And if I asked you to meet me sometime?**

**Bucky: I would still have to say no.**

**DodgersFan1918: A guy could start to take it personally.**

**Bucky: Steve, I swear, it is not you.**

**DodgersFan1918: What is it?**

**Bucky: If I said I was really busy, would you buy it?**

**DodgersFan1918: Maybe if we had not been spending all our free time watching TV together.**

**Bucky: Fair point.**

**DodgersFan1918: I promise I will never push it. I just want you to know that I want to know you. I want to meet you. I want to spend time with you.**

**Bucky: And if that is just online?**

**DodgersFan1918: Then we just hang out online. I can live with that. I would rather see you, but if this is the most that I can have, I accept it. I accept you.**

Without realizing what had happened, Bucky had disintegrated half way into the material of his mattress while staring at the screen. Through his years, he made a pastime of watching human relationships fizzle or implode. Rarely had he seen a person as generous or giving as Steve Rogers. He felt as if he were just waiting for the other shoe to drop and, so far at least, it consistently never had. He was just as good as he appeared to be. Bucky forced himself to reply.

**DodgersFan1918: Are you still there?**

**DodgersFan1918: Bucky?**

**Bucky: Thank you.**

**Bucky: Thank you, Steve. That means a lot. I feel like I maybe owe you an explanation. It is really hard for me to deal with people in real life. Sometimes just leaving my house is not an option for me. I hope this doesn’t make me too weird. I really like hanging out with you, and I want to keep doing this. I just don’t know how much else I can do.**

Bucky threw his head back. _Coward._ He thought to himself. He should have told the truth.   
_Then again, what truth?_ He thought. I’m actually an incorporeal spirit? I died in World War II? We just had that earth-shatteringly great sex you were telling me about. So glad you enjoyed it? None of these things would have been acceptable.

**DodgersFan1918: Of course I understand. It doesn’t make you too weird at all! I wouldn’t leave my house most days if I could get away with it.**

**Bucky: Whew. We are on the same page then?**

**DodgersFan1918: We always were.**

**Bucky: Cool. You want to watch something?**

And just like that, they were back on track, existing together in a state of comfort which they found nowhere else.

 

Bucky drifted from his room feeling spread especially thin on an unremarkable early Sunday afternoon. He turned the corner into the kitchen and found himself confronted with a sight that he had not expected and was wholly unprepared for. The back of a man, clad only in a pair of boxers, wrapped around Natasha’s tiny form.

He knew it was Natasha from the red hair that peeked over this man’s shoulder, and from the sound of her voice, currently making a sound that Bucky knew, though not from Natasha’s lips. He froze to the spot, unable to watch and unable to move. He did not want to see this, not really.

She spun in his arms and locked eyes with him. Caught. Shit.

If he were burst into flames on the spot from the sheer ferocity of her look alone, Bucky was certain that he would have. With horror in his heart, he slunk back into his room and closed his eyes, wishing to scour the sight of Natasha necking from his brain forever.

“I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry.” He said the minute that Clint was gone.

“Do you have any understanding of human norms?” Natasha asked, not looking up from her novel.

“I swear, I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know he was here.” Bucky raised his hands in defense.

“I’m not talking about Clint.” Natasha said, finally glancing up to meet Bucky’s eyes.

Oh shit. If Bucky were not already dead, he had the impression that he certainly would be now. This was more intimidating than the look that Natasha gave when the cat did something reprehensible and disgusting. This look was more brutal than the look that she gave the time a client tried who booked her services as a psychic for a bachelorette party used the word “spoopy” aloud.

“What—“

“Don’t play dumb.” Natasha said.

“No. Really.” Bucky said. “Tell me.”

“Fine.” Natasha said. “Let’s play connect the dots. Clint has a coworker, well, sort of, who has been walking on air the past few weeks.”

“Okay?”

“Apparently, this guy has just not been able to shut up about the man he is seeing. They talk every night. They watch TV together. They are just the cutest new couple.”

“Uh. Congratulations to them?”

“The thing that Clint finds noteworthy about this is that his friend—“

“I thought it was his coworker.” Bucky says.

“Don’t interrupt me.” Natasha bites back without stopping the patter of her speech, “They are work friends. His _friend_ has never met this wonderful new man in person. It’s an online relationship. Don’t you think that’s remarkable?”

“Well. Not especially. From what I’ve heard that’s pretty—“

“And it’s an open relationship.” Natasha barreled on, cutting through Bucky’s weak defense. “From the sound of it, this guy is making out like a bandit.”

“Natasha, are you getting to something here?” Bucky asked. He knew from enough run-ins with Natasha that the best way to survive these earthquakes, and she was indeed a force of nature, was to let her run her course, but he felt the sting of defensiveness rise within him and he never was the kind of man to back down. Never mind that he was hardly a man anymore.

“Yes, actually.” Natasha said. “How interesting that this man, Steve is his name, is in this great new relationship and also having the best sex of his life every other weekend with random Grindr hookups. It almost begs suspension of disbelief that somebody could have it so great on all fronts, doesn’t it?” Natasha raises one eyebrow. “So great that he has to talk about it with my boyfriend.”

“Oh. Clint’s your boyfriend, now? That’s excellent!” Bucky said, clinging to the only news that was not about him or Steve.

“Yes. But don’t change the subject.” Natasha batted his diversion out of the air. “Did you, or did you not, say that you would stop possessing people to go have sex with that man?”

“I did.” Bucky said, hanging his head. “But—“

“And _did_ you or did you _not_ do exactly that anyway?”

“I did.” Bucky repeated.

“Alright.” Natasha said, clasping her hands in front of her. “I just wanted to hear you say it. Go ahead and tell me why you think it’s okay.”

The truth was, no amount of moral bargaining could undo the knots that wound themselves around the situation and tightened every time Bucky tried to pry them loose. Asking his host for permission instead of possessing them without permission was a good start. He knew that he needed to keep doing that. Talking to Steve had become so entrenched in his daily existence that he could hardly imagine how he got by for so long without it. He had to keep doing that. There was no other choice. There was a fact, as impossible to erase as it was inconvenient, however, that Bucky was still not being entirely truthful.

 

**DodgersFan1918: Alright, so I’ve been thinking.**

**Bucky: That’s never a good sign.**

**DodgersFan1918: No, really.**

**Bucky: Okay let me have it.**

**DodgersFan1918: Would you be opposed to sending me a picture of you?**

**Bucky: What kind of picture?**

**DodgersFan1918: A dirty one. I’ll send you one, too. It doesn’t have to be a one sided thing. Unless you don’t want any from me.**

**Bucky: Believe me, I want them from you.**

**Bucky: And sure. You can have mine.**

Bucky typed his responses as quickly as he could while scrambling to open the photo editing app that Natasha had used to solidify him for his profile picture. He grabbed his phone and posed. Although he could do as little about his cock as he could any other part of him, he felt the memory of it move between his legs. A phantom limb in the most literal way. He would, at least, have something to show Steve.

**Bucky: You want to do this now?**

**DodgersFan1918: To be honest I thought you were going to shoot me down. I hadn’t planned on you saying yes.**

**Bucky: Surprise!**

**DodgersFan1918: Yes. I want to do this now.**

**Bucky: We have been talking for weeks. Have you really been waiting this long to see what my dick looks like?**

**DodgersFan1918: I mean, I didn’t want to make it awkward.**

**Bucky: Believe me, the only awkward thing is thinking about how long you’ve been jacking off without a visual.**

**DodgersFan1918: Jesus! Where did that come from?**

**Bucky: Probably my cock, which has been hard since the second you asked for a picture of it.**

**DodgersFan1918: Are you fucking kidding me? We’re really doing this?**

**Bucky: If you want.**

**DodgersFan1918: I want. I want like you wouldn’t believe.**

**Bucky: Tell me what you want.**

**DodgersFan1918: I want to fuck you. Or for you to fuck me. I like either.**

**Bucky: Tell me more.**

**DodgersFan1918: I want you in my bed, with my mouth around your cock, while you beg for me to let you come.**

Bucky knew, logically, that he could not experience these sensations without possessing somebody. In just the same way the he could not feel his heart beat, could not feel heat or cold against his skin, he could not feel pleasant swooping sensation in his gut or the way his cock stiffened as he read Steve’s words. And yet…

**Bucky: Oh, but you haven’t been thinking about this or anything.**

**DodgersFan1918: No, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I just didn’t want to say anything.**

**Bucky: I wish you had!**

Bucky snapped a picture of his fist gripped loosely around his member, legs splayed casually to the sides, as if this were something he did from time to time—or at least had done before. When it was taken, he flipped through the settings, looking for the best one that he could, silently thanking Natasha for choosing sheets in a solid print rather than a pattern. His editing skills only extended so far, and he was not sure how much the camera would add or subtract to his transparency.

To Bucky’s immense pleasure, the picture yielded near-human results with minimal tampering. Just as he was about to press send, Steve’s came through. Although he had seen it in person not long ago, the picture was a thing of beauty. Steve was sprawled across the chair in his room. Bucky had paid little attention to it the last time he was there, but now he was appreciating it from a new perspective.

In the picture, Steve leaned back, so that his full torso was on display. Within the corner of the frame, Bucky could just catch his cheeky smile. Bucky knew the one. The focus of the image, however, was Steve, proud, unrestrained, and erect.

**DodgersFan1918: Did you get it?**

**Bucky: It’s perfect!**

**DodgersFan1918: You like it?**

**Bucky: Of course. You look too good to be real.**

**DodgersFan1918: Do you still want to send one to me?**

**DodgersFan1918: You don’t have to.**

Bucky responded with his own picture.

The resounding silence from Steve’s end of the conversation made Bucky smile to himself. At first. After a moment, he began to worry. Had he edited it enough? Was there something weird about it? Was Steve trying to think of something polite to say? The thoughts came spilling into his mind before he could stop them.

**Bucky: Steve?**

**DodgersFan1918: Sorry! I just… You’re incredible.**

**Bucky: Thanks. I’m glad you liked it.**

Although Steve had to work the next morning, they stayed up later than they intended that evening.

 

Bucky received a text the next morning. He was fairly certain that good morning texts were of some significance. The feeling that coursed through him as he read the two word message from Steve helped him to understand why. He felt the tingle of happiness radiate through him, sending an electric energy pulsing across his field. He had to work hard and fast to stop it from effecting the battery of his phone.

He typed back.

**Bucky: Good morning :)**

**Steve: I have to go into work. No cellphones. Just wanted to say that last night was great.**

Of course Steve would follow a no cellphones rule at his job, Bucky thought to himself. He was hardly surprised. The thing that surprised him was the follow up. Steve never seemed to bother much with the boys that he brought home, the ones he picked up from the internet. What made Bucky special? Bucky asked himself. What was it about Bucky that Steve liked? Was it the challenge of a man who wouldn’t leave his house? Bucky thought that would have driven Steve off, but he had enough pictures of Steve on his phone to assure him otherwise.

He shook his head, smiled, and leaned back against his pillows, free to consider this business with Steve all he wanted.

**Bucky: Thank you. I had fun. Talk to you later, have a good day.**

**Steve: You too. :)**

And that was that. Bucky had nothing else to bother him or to do for seven hours or so until Steve returned to the internet. Natasha was, likewise at work.

Bucky roamed, as he often did. He sometimes considered getting some other dead friends. The trouble was that most of the other ghosts that he knew were, well, assholes. There was a reason that people did not cross over to wherever people went when they died. Bucky had long since stopped visiting the eves of churches and the misty dark places hidden in graveyards hoping to find answers of a spiritual nature about death and why it had not worked out for him.

All he knew was that healthy souls passed on. If there was something wrong, if a soul was in some way too twisted, or sick, or broken to move past this world, then that soul got stuck. He stopped worrying about the fact that he, himself, was here in this plane of existence. Long ago, Bucky worked out what it meant: He was one of the bent-up broken ones who, for whatever reason, could not pass on. It was what it was. Unfortunate.

Sometimes, Bucky caught himself thinking that this was hell. The place where he existed, not quite alive, always waiting for the thing he could not have.

Then Bucky considered Steve and the feelings of resentment that hung around him like a dense cloud of bitterness faded into the background, split by rays of pure, ecstatic bliss. Steve was the proof that this world was no supernatural punishment for Bucky’s soul. How could it be, when something so pure and good existed? When he, Bucky, had experienced it firsthand? Before he knew what brought him there, Bucky stood outside of Steve’s apartment building, yet again. This time unoccupied, but just as inviting.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve’s apartment looked different without Steve in it. It took on a Wonderland effect, whereby all the furniture grew larger without the gigantic figure of Steve to make everything look small by comparison. It was, Bucky realized, a very nice place. He wandered through the living room, picking up the books, and flipping through the albums—a good assortment of vinyl, Bucky noted to his pleasure—and appreciated the taste of the man.

From their conversations, he knew Steve had excellent taste. It was a facet of his personality with which Bucky was already well acquainted, but to see his collections in person and browse through them at his leisure was a treat in and of itself. Bucky took note of which books he already owned so that he could recommend some others in the future.

Bucky granted himself a few simple pleasures of a ghostly nature. He turned the taps on and off and flickered the lights for no other reason than the joy of doing it. Stretching his energy out and touching the spaces within Steve’s house that he could, these small things that he had power over, made him feel good. There were precious few things that made Bucky feel good.

And then there was Steve’s bed. Oh, Steve’s bed made Bucky feel good, alright. He dozed there, recalling all the things they did together in that space and thinking of all the things he would like to do there.

The keys rattled in the lock, sending a jolt through Bucky.

“What the—“ A handsome man with sharp, well defined features and an unsettled expression that Bucky knew too well pushed the front door open and headed straight to adjust the temperature. He raised his eyebrows, shook his head, and whipped out his phone.

“Steve?” He said. “Yeah, hi.” He paused, leaned against the kitchen counter, and waited for a moment. “Good. You’ll see when you get home then, but I think the A/C is busted or something.” He paused for another moment, listening. “Don’t know. It was freezing when I got home.” Another pause. “Yeah. Okay. Hey will you pick up some milk while you’re out, too?” He said. “Yeah, thanks buddy.”

Steve arrived shortly afterward with a jug of milk in hand and an expression of exhausted exasperation. The minute Bucky saw him, he felt the energy rush out of him, uncontrollable and powerful.

“So what seems to be the—Sam?” Steve called as he set his things down on the counter. Sam reappeared from his bedroom wrapped in a blanket, but shed it immediately. “It’s boiling. Did you turn the heat on?”

“No.” Sam said. “I just turned the air off.” Sam groaned, “Oh this is going to be a mess. Let’s hope the landlord gets off his ass and fixes it this time.”

Bucky knew that he needed to leave the apartment. He was causing trouble. These were beginner problems, things he should have learned to control long ago, and he kicked himself for his inability to reign them in. Cold spots? Temperature regulation was child’s play. He figured out how to tread lightly enough not to effect the climate around him in a noticeable way very shortly after his death. It took something big to distract him to such a degree. He rolled his eyes at himself. Just being near Steve threw him off his game.

Then his eyes caught on a pair of extraordinarily blue eyes, staring in pure disbelief directly at him.

For so long, Bucky had lived in the comfort of invisibility. Except for the quick, not really there, glances out of the corners of the eyes of passersby at train stations, or highway rest stops, or the other places in the world where barriers between the living and Bucky were thin, people did not see him. Natasha saw Bucky, but that was a different matter. This was an undeniable flash of recognition. Steve blinked, once, twice, and rubbed his eyes.

“What’s up?” Sam asked.

“I don’t…” Steve began. “Thought I saw…” He shook his head. “You know what,” He said, turning around and setting his hands on the counter, “never mind, it has been a long day. Are you going to call the landlord?”

Bucky fled. He blew through the room, down the stairs and into the street as quickly as he could, exhausting himself in the process. By the time he arrived back at his home, he was as much a blur as the journey was in his mind.

“Jesus, shit.” Natasha said, rushing to him for all the good it did either of them. “What happened to you?” She asked, lighting a candle and setting it down next to the single picture that they had of him. It had belonged to his mother, then his sister, and then Natasha dug it up at a rummage sale and haggled the junk collector down from her asking price of fifteen dollars to ten. It was nice to know what his face was worth. The candle made him feel a little better.

“He saw me.”

“You went back again?” She asked. “What the hell, Bucky? Did you just get out of prison or something? You can’t keep it in your pants for more than a couple of hours or something?”

“No.” Bucky said. “He saw _me_.”

Natasha’s eyes widened in understanding. “Oh.” was all she said as she turned away.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen.” He said.

“No.” She said. Her back straight, posture tight. “It explains a lot. If he’s gifted, I mean.” She turned around and Bucky was taken aback to see the red around her eyes and nose, the glassy tears that threatened to overwhelm her and spill down her cheeks at any moment. “It is good, you know. Yeah.” She said. “He should be able to see you.”

Bucky shook his head. “No, Natasha.” He coaxed her over to the couch and wrapped a shawl over her shoulders to comfort her, to hold her in the way he could not. “It could never be like us.”

A flame flickered behind Natasha’s eyes, bright and dangerous, but only for a moment. It warned Bucky not to patronize her. It was a reminder that the woman he sat across from was more powerful than every ounce of him put together and that she knew it. Powerful or not, Natasha deserved the same devotion and friendship that Bucky would have given anybody who saved his life.

“You know I love you, right?” He asked.

“I don’t know if you can love.” She said. It was not malicious, it was just the truth. He always counted on her to tell him the things he needed to hear, even if they were not the things he wanted to hear.

“If I can love anybody, it is you.” Bucky said, meeting her eyes with everything he had.

“I do know that.” She agreed. “And you know the same is true of me.” She said.

“I know.” Bucky said. Bucky remembered what it was like to have a family. He remembered his sisters, his mother, his father. Natasha was every one of those people, now cold in their graves, and so much more to him.

 

Steve was late logging in that night. Bucky was under no delusions why. He stared at the computer screen and clicked away at sites that used to fill his hours with interest, reading about the world. After hours beyond the time when they usually started speaking, Bucky felt himself grow anxious.

It was only when he felt himself vibrating, the energy pinging around with nowhere to go, that he noticed his phone blinking at him. There were two missed messages, the first, from an hour before, was indeed, from Steve, just letting him know that he would be late while he waited for the landlord. The second, to Bucky’s delight, had only been sent a moment ago.

**Steve: aaaahhhhh… all better.**

A picture came through seconds later of Steve’s feet. The photograph was taken from Steve’s perspective, showing his feet resting along the ledge of his bathtub, his legs extending from the hot water. It made Bucky groan, covetous, just to consider what that water must have felt like on Steve’s skin. All that skin, laid out in the steaming water, just out of view. Bucky leaned his head back and closed his eyes so that he could imagine it and so that he would be free from the torture of the image.

It was hard for Bucky to know which he wanted more, to stretch out in that hot water feeling his muscles relax and the tension drain from him, or if he wanted Steve. When he could stand to look at it again, he texted Steve back.

**Bucky: You did that on purpose, didn’t you?**

**Steve: Did what? I have no idea what you are talking about.**

**Bucky: You are a filthy liar, Steve Rogers.**

**Steve: Not so filthy anymore. I’m getting all nice and clean now.**

This was the way they went on with each other. Two steps forward and one playful step back, the flirtations gave them something to look forward to, and the teasing gave them each a place to run anytime they drove each other too far.

**Bucky: Can I see more?**

Bucky did not expect the picture that loaded on his phone only a moment later. Steve’s body, wet and glistening, with a knowing smile. This answered the question that hung in Bucky’s mind from the earlier picture: Bucky wanted Steve. There was no doubt. He studied the contours of his body and the way the water clung to his hips and sides, the surface breaking across his torso, and the droplets on his chest hair. He groaned. This was too good.

**Steve: What do you think?**

**Bucky: I wish I were there.**

**Steve: Really? And why is that?**

**Bucky: Because I think you could use a hand.**

**Steve: You want to help me bathe?**

There was no denying it, Bucky thought. He might as well be as honest with Steve as he could.

**Bucky: Yes.**

**Steve: That’s awfully nice of you. Tell me how you would do it.**

**Bucky: It sounds like you had a rough day. I would start with your shoulders and help you get all the tension out.**

**Steve: Oh I’m much tenser than that right now.**

**Bucky: I’m sure you are.**

**Steve: Go on.**

**Bucky: Then I would wash your chest. You have amazing pecs. Anybody ever tell you that?**

**Steve: Haha not really no. But I’ll take the compliment.**

**Bucky: Then your legs. I would take my time, really get you worked up.**

**Steve: You’re doing a good job.**

**Bucky: So by the time I got to your cock you would be begging me to get you off right there under the water, all hot and wet.**

**Steve: Oh God! Jesus Christ! Bucky!**

**Bucky: Only one out of three there, pal.**

**Steve: Haha, smartass.**

**Bucky: That’s right.**

Bucky reread the conversation, scrolling up through his texts, reveling in his bravery and his boldness. When Steve’s response came a few minutes later, Bucky glowing, pulsing with his own unique radiation.

**Steve: I wish you were here, too. That sounds incredible.**

**Bucky: Did I improve your bath a little, at least?**

**Steve: More than a little. I’ll find you online in a bit okay?**

**Bucky: Sure. See you then.**

Getting Steve off without touching him. It was obvious and it felt good. He could make Steve feel good with words alone. He could appreciate Steve’s body all he wanted, and Steve could know it was him. The thought filled Bucky with a complicated emotion. He could have been doing this with Steve the whole time—he should have been doing this the whole time.

Involving strangers into their affairs was a messy way to go about things. And yet… and yet, oh god, just the thought of it, of being able to touch Steve (of being able to touch) made Bucky feel the tingling whisper of warmth in his hands. He wanted that feeling again. He missed it. The feeling of being inside another person, not sexually, but possession. If he was honest with himself, he missed the feeling of sex as well.

No, Bucky decided, he would not forgo possession entirely. He would not deny himself the joys of sensation, touch, consumption, warmth, of _comfort._ He would just do it less often now that he and Steve had reached this level in their talks. That was a fair deal, he decided. He could live with that.

 

Bucky was roused in the afternoon of the next day to the sound of an unexpected voice in his house. He knew the voice. He knew it deeply, intimately, but he did not know it in his house. Natasha’s voice responded in the soothing tone which she put on for her client’s sake when they chose to stop by her home, rather than the office.

“It’s no problem,” She said, leading the way down the hall. “Please come in. Can I get you anything?” She asked.

“A glass of water would be great, if it’s not too much trouble.”

Bucky met Natasha in the kitchen.

“What is he doing here?” He asked in a hoarse whisper while Natasha filled two glasses of water.

“What?” Natasha asked. “Just some guy who thinks there is something funky about his apartment.”

“Yeah. I know. It’s Steve.” Bucky said, panic edging its way into his voice. Natasha’s face pinched into a tight frown. Bucky sighed and cast his eyes down. “I know I messed up.” He said. “I’m sorry.”

“We will deal with sorry later.” Natasha said, springing into action. “I’ll clean this up now.”

“Oh shit!” Bucky said. “Nat, my picture is in there. Go.”

Natasha grabbed the water and walked as smoothly and quickly as she could down the hall.

Bucky followed, and while the temptation to stroll into his living room and take a seat where he normally did, in his favorite chair, appealed to him more than he could have expressed, he grit his teeth and stayed out of sight. Steve saw him back at his own apartment. There was no denying it. If it was a fluke, some bleed through the barrier of life and death, or if Steve truly could see Bucky, he had no idea. All Bucky knew for sure was that he could not risk it happening again.

“Here you go,” Natasha said in an uncharacteristically friendly voice, all bubbles and charm. She set the water on the coffee table. Steve spun around, his attention drawn away from the bookcase, and not, Bucky noted with relief, Natasha’s alter. Bucky’s picture had gone unnoticed. Natasha flipped it face down as she passed in a smooth movement that she distracted Steve from with her other hand, gesturing toward him. “So you said there is something going on at your apartment?” She prompted. “Tell me more about that.”

“I thought I was going crazy at first.” Steve said. Natasha took a seat, and Steve followed, occupying Bucky’s spot. “So, um. Cold spots? Apparitions? Is that what you call them?”

“Sometimes.” Natasha shrugged. “What do you call it?” She asked.

“My roommate thought there was something wrong with the climate control.” Steve said, then shook his head. “But I saw something. No, someone, in the kitchen. I am pretty sure he saw me, too. The way he looked at me, it was like he knew me.”

“And then what?”

“And then there was this big rush of something. I have never felt anything like it. And then nothing. I have been trying to talk to him ever since, but he hasn’t been talking back. I was wondering if you…” Steve trailed off, the hope lingered in his voice like a question. Natasha’s face grew cold and she shook her head slowly. One of her small, strong hands closed carefully around Steve’s. She nearly never touched people.

“No.” She said. There was kindness in her voice. “This is something that you need to leave alone.”

“But—“

“Please.” She squeezed his hand, then let it go. “This spirit does not want to be found. You can go around shouting in your kitchen until you are blue in the face, but you won’t be doing yourself or him any good.” She rose from the couch and rummaged in a drawer in the large antique hutch. She removed a bundle of white sage and handed it to Steve.

“Burn this in your kitchen. Fair warning, it smells like pot.”

“Right.” Steve nodded. “Okay.”

“It will cleanse your home, that’s all. There is nothing weird about a little sage.”

“Okay.” Steve said again. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Natasha said, offering her hand. “Come back anytime, Steve.”

“I didn’t—“

“No. You didn’t tell me your name.” She said. “I’m good like that.”

Steve left with the look of a man who had been both spooked and impressed. It was the look with which most people left Natasha’s house.

“You gave him sage? Really Natasha?” Bucky asked the minute Steve was out of sight.

“Well, somebody had to do it.” Natasha said. “The man is being haunted, after all.”

“Yes. By me.”

“I would have been derelict of duty if I hadn’t.” She said.

“Do you realize how much harder that’s going to make—“

“How much harder it will make it for you to get laid?” Natasha said, interrupting Bucky. “Not sure that’s the big concern here, Bucky. Anyway, you can still go visit him. I burn sage here all the time. It won’t keep you out of his house if he wants you there.”

Bucky felt like a child throwing a tantrum. There was more to it than the sage. It was seeing Steve in his house, in his chair. It was finding that Steve knew about his world, about Natasha and that he had no trouble visiting her and accepting sage to burn to cleanse his home. It was the idea that this might not be such a bitter pill for Steve to swallow. Bucky had not reckoned on such a possibility. It spooked him.

Paradoxically, it was the fact that Bucky had not been the one to tell him, and to shatter his worldview. How many times had he imagined that conversation? How many times had he rehearsed it in his imagination? It was terrible, and it could never happen, he knew that, but there was a part of Bucky that wanted desperately to tell Steve all about who he really was. The idea that Steve believed in the paranormal was a scab now, and Bucky knew he would never be able to stop picking at it.

 

**Bucky: How was your day?**

**DodgersFan1918: It was better, thanks. How about you?**

**Bucky: Not bad. Did things get straightened out with your apartment?**

**DodgersFan1918: I think so. It must have been a fluke. The A/C hasn’t been acting up since that one time.**

**Bucky: Good. Glad to hear it.**

**DodgersFan1918: Yeah. Trying to get the landlord to fix anything around here is a pain in the ass.**

Bucky felt the first glimmer of dissatisfaction spark into life around him. Why wouldn’t Steve tell him about visiting Natasha? It was not a lie as much as a failure to include the whole truth, but Bucky felt the sting of it no less.

**Bucky: What did you get up to today?**

**DodgersFan1918: Not much. You?**

**Bucky: Not much.**

**DodgersFan1918: Hey, I’m thinking of having somebody over tonight. Would that be alright with you?**

**Bucky: Of course that’s fine. Why wouldn’t that be alright with me?**

**DodgersFan1918: Well, you know. It would be for sex. I just wanted to make sure that was still okay.**

**Bucky: You’re being safe, right?**

**DodgersFan1918: Yeah, of course.**

**Bucky: Then far be it for me to tell you not to have sex! I mean, it’s not like we get to do it. And I want you to have it, since you like it.**

**DodgersFan1918: Oh, good. I didn’t want that to be a problem for us or anything.**

**Bucky: That’s sweet of you. But seriously. If it makes you happy, go for it.**

**DodgersFan1918: Thanks, Bucky.**

**Bucky: Just out of curiosity, is it anybody I know about?**

**DodgersFan1918: Uh, not really? There was this guy, Peter. I thought I would see if he was free.**

Bucky punched the air and breathed a nearly inaudible victory cry to the emptiness around him.

**Bucky: Cool. Hey, thanks for mentioning it, Steve.**

**DodgersFan1918: Sure. Just wanted to make sure that it was no problem.**

**Bucky: We’re good, I promise.**

Bucky leaned against the brick wall of Steve’s apartment building when Peter arrived. Peter did a double-take, catching sight of Bucky out of the corner of his eye just before he slipped into his head.

 _Oh hey_ Peter said at the intrusion. _I thought it might be you. Damn, you’re handsome. Why don’t you show up at Steve’s yourself?_

 _Thanks._ Bucky said, settling into Peter’s head. _I can’t go to Steve’s without a body. You game?_

_Same rules as last time?_

_Same rules as last time._ Bucky agreed, solemn and honest. It had been a leap of faith for Peter to let Bucky possess him once. Clearly, he didn’t mind, but it was still not the average human who would let a ghost take over their bodies not once but twice. Either Peter was unbelievably hospitable or he was an adrenaline junky of the strangest kind. Bucky didn’t care much about the distinction. He just appreciated Peter’s eccentricities, however he came by them.

 _Alright then. Go for it._ Peter said.

 _Thank you,_ Bucky thought, gratefully, and took over. 

 

He bounded up the hall toward Steve’s door, feeling lightheaded and happy. He was at home at Natasha’s house, yes. That was the place where he could be himself in the most undeniable way, but here, with Steve, he felt alive. Here, he remembered why home was important. Bucky knocked on the door and smiled brightly when Steve opened it too quickly. He knew Steve had been standing there waiting for him— _for Peter_ , an intrusive thought interjected. Bucky shushed it and stepped inside.

“Hey.” Bucky said.

“Hey.” Steve replied.

There was nothing else for them to say. Bucky had no words, every syllable driven from his mind at the sight of Steve standing before him. Steve had little to offer him, unaware that it was Bucky, after all. Still on the landing just inside the door, Bucky dropped to the carpet gave his mouth something else to do.

Steve fell back against the door, a hand catching himself along the frame to hold himself steady there, the other on Bucky’s shoulder while Bucky worked Steve’s sweatpants down his hips. He looked up, their eyes meeting for just a moment, before Steve’s hand slid from Bucky’s shoulder into his hair, gripping as if to say everything that Steve was too polite to verbalize.

Bucky responded just as impolitely. He tasted the bitter, salty flavor of Steve’s precome on his tongue as he took him as far into his mouth as he could. From above him, Bucky could hear the hollow thunk of the door when Steve’s head fell back against it, the moan that fell from his lips drifted to Bucky’s ears like music.

He was spurred on by the sounds and by the way Steve gripped at his hair and spread his legs farther apart. Bucky reached up, ran his hand along Steve’s leg and cupped his balls, kneeding them in time with the wet, hot suction that he applied with his lips while his head bobbed up and down. When he added his tongue, which flicked along the underside of Steve’s cock with just the right insistency and rhythm, Steve lost his composure. Bucky could tell from the way his back arched off of the door and his legs tensed that he was close.

“Aah—“The warning sound that Bucky knew from experience meant Steve was getting close came earlier than Bucky expected. He had not been on his knees for very long. He made the choice in an instant, pushing ahead, he wrapped his hand around the base of Steve’s thick, heavy cock and pumped in time with the movements of his mouth, and drew back to taste everything Steve gave him as it spilled down his throat. He swallowed and stilled, but waited until Steve’s gentle tug of his hair to let him fall from his mouth, sated and clean.

“Oh god.” Steve said, still leaning against the door. Bucky leaned back on his haunches to appreciate the sight of Steve, wrecked, finally softening, still out of breath. “Jesus.” Steve breathed, to himself. “Is that how you say hello to all your friends?”

Bucky laughed and rose to his feet.

“Can I grab myself some water?” He asked.

“I would pretty much give you anything you asked for right now. But yeah, water. Drink up.” Steve said.

Bucky felt the water slide down his throat and moaned.

“Somebody in there with you?” Steve called from the living room.

“Mmm, no.” Bucky replied, returning and straddling Steve on the couch. He picked up Steve’s hand where it rested at his side and guided it to his crotch to feel where he strained against the closure of his jeans. “Just really turned on.” He leaned in and pressed his lips to the spot right behind Steve’s ear where he knew he liked to be kissed, and sucked hard.

“Oh, Bu—“ Steve whimpered. Bucky pulled back, eyes wide.

Steve couldn’t have been about to say… He wasn’t. It was wishful thinking.

“Sorry.” Steve said. “I shouldn’t have. That was rude.”

“That guy?” Bucky asked. “The one you told me about last time?”

Steve nodded, patches of red appeared in his cheeks that Bucky was sure were only partially due to their current predicament.

“I won’t pretend you’re him or anything.” Steve said, shaking his head. “His name just sort of—“

“No.” Bucky said. “What’s his name?” Bucky asked, as if he didn’t know.

“It’s Bucky.” Steve said with a smile that betrayed him.

“Okay.” Bucky said.

“Okay?” Steve asked, his eyebrows drawn together, confusion written all over his face.

“Call me Bucky. I want you to.”


	5. Chapter Five

 

"Really?" Steve sounded disbelieving, but hopeful all the same.

 

"Yeah." Bucky met his gaze, peering out from Peter's eyes. "I want you to call me Bucky, since that's what you--who you want. You should have what you want. Call me Bucky and...and fuck me, just like you would him." He could feel that Steve was already hard again.

 

"You're sure you don't--"

 

"Ask me again and I'll take it back," Bucky murmured. Steve's lips found his then, pulling him down into a crushing-teeth-rattling kiss; he ground them together on the couch as Bucky straddled his lap. Bucky took this as the resounding  _yes_  that it was. He felt Steve's teeth bite at his lower lip and moaned at the sensation.

 

As if the body he occupied weighed nothing at all, Steve picked Bucky up and carried him to his room. Bucky clung tightly to him, legs wrapped around his waist and arms gripping his shoulders. It was a new sensation, this swooping feeling, as he was dropped bodily on the bed. Steve bore down upon him, shucking off his shirt along the way. Bucky had just enough time to do the same before they were locked at the lips again. He felt Steve's hands run up his thighs, feeling the long cords of muscle there.

 

Bucky stretched out beneath him; he took deep, shaking breaths, while Steve's hands moved slowly, far too slowly, to the button of Bucky's jeans. He took his time. From the smile he flashed from under his brow, Bucky understood that this would take quite a while. He lay back and let Steve pick him apart, minute by torturous minute.

Steve bypassed Bucky's swollen, aching cock, already leaking precome, and bent his legs up to gain better leverage. Bucky felt his tongue, and closed his eyes, the hiss of a whisper escaping his lips.

 

"Yes," he said, the sound carrying on his breath. "Oh God yes. Steve, yes. Yes. Yes." Each movement of Steve's tongue was a mercy, every twitch a new kind of cruelty. Bucky's hands clutched at Steve's head, but the man would have none of that--he grabbed Bucky's wrists and pinned them down at his sides, holding him there while he licked and sucked until Bucky was writhing against him. "Steve, please," Bucky whined. Steve pulled away, face flushed, and watched the way Bucky's chest rose and fell rapidly, while his red cock rested between his legs.

 

Steve leaned down over Bucky, nestled close in to kiss at his neck and rutted down against him, leaving Bucky all but speechless. The friction of their bodies was too good, and not enough. Although his hands now dug into Bucky's arms, holding onto his biceps, thumbs stroking almost lovingly up and down, Bucky kept his own hands right where Steve had put them. Steve was in charge here, and Bucky was under no delusions of being free to do anything except exactly what he said.

 

"Oh god. Steve, please," Bucky said again.

 

"Please what?" Steve panted into Bucky's ear, almost a whisper. "Tell me what you want, Buck."

 

"I want you to fuck me. Please, Steve. Do it. Do me. I want it." Bucky begged for it like he never had before, like he didn't know he could. He felt Steve move away. The distance between them was unwelcome. Bucky's eyes widened. Maybe Steve would say no, he thought, as Steve rolled off for a moment, just a moment, but too long.

 

Bucky whined, incoherent, but the point was clear.

 

"Shhhh..." Steve whispered, climbing back on top of Bucky as he rolled a condom down his length. The smell of lube hit Bucky's nose. There was something in it both chemical, and promising. Steve smoothed Bucky's hair down with one hand, while he reached between them with the other to gently rub Bucky's ass, softening him up and oh, Bucky was here for all of this.

 

When he was finally filled with Steve's cock, Steve heavy and hot above him, pounding away until Bucky could almost taste it, he felt at peace in a way he never imagined he could. He reached for Steve's hand and gripped it tight, felt the slide of their bodies just right as Steve slowed, grabbed Bucky's knee and repositioned them, then resumed a brutal pace. He pressed forward, and touched something inside that made Bucky light up all the way to his toes.

 

"Aah!" Bucky screamed, surprised at the sudden rush of come that gushed forth from his cock as it twitched.

 

"Bucky?" Steve asked, shocked. "I--I'm sorry, I mean Pete--"

 

"No." Bucky locked eyes with Steve. "Keep going. I can come again." He nodded at Steve, who did not need to be told twice. As it turned out, Bucky was right, and came with Steve deep inside him.

 

Steve followed not a moment later, gripping onto Bucky for dear life, and chanting so low that he could hardly hear it at all, "Bucky, Bucky, oh god,  _Bucky_!" Steve froze, hips pressed down all the way to Bucky's ass, face screwed up in pure bliss. As he came back down from the high, softening, malleable again, it took everything Bucky had not to gather Steve into his arms and press kisses to every inch he could reach, mumbling reassurances that it was him, he was there. Steve wouldn't understand, Bucky knew.

 

Bucky settled for stroking though Steve's hair while Steve curled up against his side.

 

It happened in a glance. A flash of recognition so quick that Buck hardly realized it had passed between them until it was over and possible to rescind. This was more than the friendly surface acquaintance Steve shared with the man he believed to be Peter. This was the deep, soul-to-soul  _knowledge_  that Steve had of Bucky. It was something Bucky felt in him, through him; as if he'd known it from the beginning of his life, through death, and up until that very moment.

 

"Bucky?" Steve whispered the name so quietly that it was little more than a breath, a hope. A series of options flooded Bucky's mind. He could play dumb, pretend he had no idea what Steve was talking about. It would be the easiest course of action just to numb himself to the pain it would cause him, to reject himself down to his very name and pretend that he was not who he was. He could do it.

 

He could kiss it away. Kiss it better. This was the most tempting option, by far. Maybe, if he grabbed the back of Steve's neck and pressed their lips together, with all the passion and terror he felt in that moment, he could erase the reality of what had transpired between them. It was a foolish thought.

 

So Bucky did what he'd done for seventy years, whenever he found himself in a situation that frightened him. He ran away form it, vanishing before it could become something worse. He slipped into the recesses of Peter's mind and cowered there. He could feel Peter all but roll his eyes at Bucky's choice.

 

"Hey Steve?" Peter said, as gently as he could.

 

"Yeah?" Steve asked, eyes wide, ready to say yes to anything.

 

'That was really good, but you might want to stop calling me Bucky now."

 

Steve's face arranged itself into a perfect mask of calm. It would have been impossible for most to see the disappointment there, which was as easy for Bucky to read as a blinking neon sign.

 

"Right. Of course. Sorry," Steve said.

 

"Naw, it's fine."

 

 

 

Bucky slipped quietly from Peters mind as he and Steve slept, and made his way home. The glow of everything he'd done with Steve, the feeling of Steve inside of him, saying his, Bucky's, name as he climaxed, was washed away by Bucky's cowardice. He felt the failure of the evening like a thick layer of soot, impossible to scrub away.

 

"Ooh, that's bad," Natasha said, without looking up from the coffee table. What happened to you?"

 

"I don't wan to talk about it."

 

"Fine, fine." Natasha waved him off absently.

 

Bucky collapsed in his room, unable to tear his gaze from the ceiling. He berated himself, as he had done for many hours now. There was nothing he could do to make it better. He had greatly and excellently fucked up.

 

The alerting sound from his computer told him he had a new message.

 

**DodgersFan91918: Hey**

**Bucky: How was your night?**

**DodgersFan1918: It was really good. Thanks.**

**Bucky: Good.**

**DodgersFan1918: There's something I need to tell you.**

 

Bucky's brain failed him. The ability to form words, in his mind or with his hands, short-circuited. He couldn't move. and like that, more words were appearing before his eyes.

 

**DodgersFan1918: You know that job I've been kind of not telling you about? The one that has a lot of jumping out of airplanes and stuff?**

**Bucky: Yes**

****DodgersFan1918: My boss called. I'm going to have to go jump out of some of those airplanes. I won't be gone long. I just didn't want you to think that I'd stopped talking to you.** **

 

Bucky's entire being became one big rush of relief. This wasn't about him, or what had happened with Peter. It was something else entirely. He could handle that.

 

**Bucky: How long do you think you'll be gone?**

**DodgersFan1918: It's classified, but probably not longer than a week.**

**Bucky: Okay. Is it alright if I tell you I'll miss you?**

**DodgersFan1918: It would be a pretty dick move if you said you wouldn't miss me.**

**Bucky: I'll miss you.**

**DodgersFan1918: I'll miss you too.**

**DodgersFan918: Talk to you soon.**

**Bucky: Talk to you soon.**

 

He would not say goodbye.

 

* * *

 

It was only as the days passed with no word from Steve that Bucky realized how much he depended on his presence. He looked forward to hearing from him on a normal day, when it was only a matter of hours between their conversations. This new distance, the not-knowing of it all was nearly unbearable. The days that were supposed to not exceed a week stretched on and on into a wasteland.

 

Natasha clicked her tongue as she turned the page of her book, and flicked her eyes up at Bucky.

 

"You're looking awfully morose." she said

 

"Let's do something." Bucky replied, trying to shake off the cold emptiness that crept up whenever he thought about Steve for too long.

 

'Want to watch a movie?"

 

"Not really. I'm too distracted." Bucky muttered. What he meant was that he would be thinking of all the things he'd say to Steve if they were watching.

 

"Go for a walk?" Natasha suggested. Bucky made a face and shook his head. He always ended up back at Steve's house, standing on the sidewalk, and feeling the vacancy of the place.

 

'Maybe not."

 

Natasha put her book down on the coffee table with perhaps a bit more force than was necessary.

 

"I'm not playing this guessing game, Bucky."

 

"Okay, Sorry, " Bucky said. "It's just. I don't know, maybe you should get the cards."

 

"What?" Natasha raised an eyebrow. "You hate it when I do--"

 

"I know, but it's bad." Bucky said. "Something feels wrong."

 

"Okay, Natasha said. "You might not like it." She grabbed a Tarot deck from the table beside  her and shuffled, laying out three cards side by side. This was the simple kind of reading, Bucky knew, that she did for herself to get answers fast, not to impress the clients. "Shit," she said under her breath, brows drawn together.

 

"What?'"

 

  
"You should get in touch with him."

"Tell me what it says" Bucky glanced down at the table.

 

"This is, more or less the recent past. Where Steve has been lately. So you can rest assured there, at least," she said pointing to the first card. The Lovers. Self-explanatory, Bucky thought. He gazed down with a feeling of contentment at the pastoral scene and the serene, nude man and woman.

 

"This," Natasha cut in, pointing to the second card, "is Steve's current predicament. Looks bad, right?" Bucky examined the card, tensing up as he did so. Lightning striking a ruined tower. He knew this one. Bad news. He met Natasha's eyes with his own worried gaze.

 

"what's happening?"

 

"The cards don't work that way, you know that. It's just broad strokes with these things, no fine detail here. We're lucky to be getting that much. I've only met Steve once, after all." Natasha stared down at the card again. "Whatever it is, Bucky, it doesn't look like good news."

 

"What about the last one?" Bucky asked quietly, desperation in his voice.

 

"The hanged man," Natasha said. "Oh."

 

"Oh? Oh what?"

 

"Sacrifice, usually. Martyrdom. A person who gets stuck--unable to move on."

 

Natasha didn't meet Bucky's eyes at this, unable to look away from the image of the man suspended upside-down on the card.

 

"So that's his future?" Bucky asked.

 

"A possible future," Natasha corrected, almost automatically. "But yes, it might be."

 

Bucky rose while Natasha shuffled the cards back into the deck.

 

"Thank you." He was amazed he could give voice to anything at all.

 

"I'm sorry, " Natasha replied.

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky got online and waited. There was no message from Steve.

 

**Bucky: Hey, Steve, are you back?**

**Bucky: Just checking in. Hope you are alright.**

 

There was no reply.

 

* * *

Bucky let his feet carry him to Steve's building after all, telling himself that this concern was no longer weakness but practicality.  Now that Natasha had validated his fears, they were louder than anything else in his head. They were all but screaming inside his brain.

 

The apartment was empty. Horribly so.

 

There'd been a time when Bucky played in the energy that resonated throughout Steve's home. He like the way Steve made a place feel, even when he was no longer there; as if he'd just walked out of the room and would walk right back in again. Now, though, something was different. Bucky felt a shift, as though Steve and turned the bolt on the door and had no intention of coming back. He did not stay for long.

 

* * *

 

"We don't know." Clint was saying, as Bucky returned home, defeated and worried. "The signal cut out. God, I shouldn't even be telling you this, it's just--if anyone can locate him, I don't even think they'd care how you did it." Clint sat with his back to the door. He didn't see Bucky slip past him and into the hallway to listen.

 

"Oh come on, be honest Clint; you'd never hear the end of it if your weirdo girlfriend helped you on a case."

 

"It's not a case." Clint shook hi head . "He's more important than that, Nat, and besides, they don't really know what you do."

 

"I'll do my best," Natasha sighed.

 

 

 

The panic weighed heavily on Bucky over the next few days. He checked his computer with obsessive regularity, sure that something would have changed between the minutes. Nothing ever did. At last, after the gnawing sensation grew to envelop his world, Bucky dug into the recesses of his dignity and threw the shreds away. There were certain things that any self-respecting spirit would never do. Then again, no self-respecting spirit was likely to have been as desperate to find somebody as Bucky was right now.

 

With a furtive glance into the hallway to be sure that Natasha hadn't seen him, he closed his bedroom door and shut off the lights, careful to keep his computer open just in case. Then, sitting cross-legged on the ground, Bucky opened the box and set the talking board on the ground with the pointer in the middle.

 

Bucky had never used a talking board before. Why would he? The only medium ever wanted to speak to did so face-to-face. He had no time and no interest in such devices. Crude, so often misused, they were so far below his frequencies that he hardly noticed when people tried to communicate through them. Yet here he was, on the other side of the board.

 

"Steve?" Bucky said aloud. "Steve, look. I really hope you can't hear me with this, but if you can, it's just like texting. Just let me know, okay?"

 

The plancette drifted steadily to "Yes", and Bucky knew the answer before it stopped moving. Here it was, the worst had been confirmed. Bucky could now see why the living wanted so badly to believe that the dead could talk from beyond the grave. The rush of horror;  at knowing it was true, of longing to reach out to Steve; and relief, that he could still speak with him here, all flooded Bucky in a single wave.

 

"Oh god. Oh Steve, I'm sorry."

 

"It's okay." Steve's voice answered, disembodied, but there in the room with him and clear as day. "I'm just--I don't know how to explain it, Bucky. Probably not going to be able to talk to you online for a while. Hope that's okay."

 

"What?" Bucky said with a small laugh. "Steve! How are you doing that?"

 

"Doing what?"

 

"Talking to me." Bucky said

 

"I don't know. Same way you're talking to me, I guess. How're you talking to  _me_?" Steve asked.

 

"I'm using a Ouija board. Steve?" Bucky hesitated to ask the question, but he needed to know where to take things with Steve. "Do you know where you are?"

 

"I think I'm dead, Bucky," Steve said. There was a certain finality to the statement that made Bucky chuckle. It came out as a sob. He hadn't realized that he was crying.

 

"Sorry," Bucky said, and he was, for everything. "It's not funny. Just, I am too."

 

'I kinda figured that out."

 

"So where are you? I'll come find you if you want."

 

"I'm at home. Just go back to Brooklyn. I would have written to you, only..." Steve let his sentence trail off.

 

"You can't touch things yet, can you?" Bucky remembered the early days, when he'd been nothing but wisps of vapor, something so faint that he was hardly aware of himself.

 

"No, I can't. How can you stand it?"

 

"There are tricks," Bucky said. "I'll show you."

 

 

 

* * *

 

Bucky made his way into the kitchen the next morning in a daze. He felt lightheaded, as if he were watching from far above himself. The talk with Steve lasted all night, as talks with Steve so often did, however it required more energy to maintain the connection than ever before. He gave something of himself and received something from Steve just to speak. It was a gift, freely given and taken by each. By the time they let the tether between them disappear with the promise to find each other that day, Bucky felt a welcome exhaustion like he had never before known.

Natasha sat at the table with an expression that Bucky did not know how to piece together in his mind. Her hands cradled a cup of coffee which she had not touched. Her eyes remained fixed on a space in the vacant air in front of her. Bucky took his customary seat adjacent to her and watched her think, or try not to think.

“You knew.” He said, at last.

“Yes.” Natasha said, her eyes remained where they were, expression unchanged. “He died four days ago.”

“And you didn’t tell me.” Bucky said. He was not accusatory, there was no fight in him for Natasha that day. “Why not?”

“I could tell he wasn’t ready.” Natasha finally turned to face him, her trance broken. “Neither were you.”

“And you?” Bucky asked. “Are you ready?”

The tears spilled over the edge of Natasha’s eyes, unbidden and unstoppable. In the years that Bucky had known her—so many years now—he had never once seen her cry. The rest of Natasha was marble, washed clean by this emotion. She let it overcome her, flood her, and then end. It was a storm that passed over her and through her. All that Bucky could do was watch.

“We don’t get to be ready for loss. That’s why it is loss.” Natasha said.

She reached out for Bucky’s hand and placed her own on it. The Contact between her living soul and his own was jarring. It was loud and violent, and Bucky felt the pain of her life and his life and the pain that he caused for all the lives that he had touched in a single instant. If it had been any hand but Natasha’s, he would have wanted to pull away. If it had been anybody but Natasha, he would have let them carry the burden of this pain alone. Instead, they shouldered it together, and faced it head on.

They came through to the other side of the Contact, still holding hands across the kitchen table. It hurt, but in a different way. It hurt because he could feel a trace of the glowing warmth of Natasha’s skin above his hand, could make out the vibrations of her pulse, and he knew the love that flowed between him. He understood that she was saying goodbye.

“Clint is a good man.” Natasha said. She filled in the gaps for Bucky, just like she always did. “I’m not going to be alone.”

“I am going to miss you.” Bucky said. It was a promise.

“No.” Natasha shook her head. “I think you are going to have much better things to do than miss me,” She gripped his hand a little harder, “but I appreciate the sentiment.” She released his hand but allowed Bucky to maintain the Contact. “Now go find him.” She said.

“Thank you.” Bucky said.

 

Steve was easy to find. He was waiting just behind his apartment door, right where Bucky always found him whenever he sought him out. Bucky knocked once, and the wood of the door acquiesced to his touch, allowing the reverberations to carry through.

“Bucky?” Steve called. “Come in.”

Steve sat on the couch in the dark, wearing a heavy, damp suit made of a material that looked like it was made to stand up to all kinds of assaults.

“So.” Bucky said, looking Steve over. He did not meet Bucky’s eye, hunched over and defeated. All that Bucky could think was that he looked cold. “Military?”

Steve finally glanced up at Bucky with a surprised smile. “Not exactly.” Steve said.

“And not anymore.” Bucky said. “You don’t have to stay in those cold, wet clothes, you know.” Bucky said.

“I don’t?”

“No. You can kind of dream up whatever you like. You don’t see me in a bloody uniform from the second world war, do you?” Bucky asked. And just like that, the pieces slid together in Steve’s brain so clearly that Bucky could see it happen.

“Is that how you… how _long_ you’ve… oh god, Buck!” And in the first real show of emotion that Bucky saw from him that day, Steve bounded up from his seat and threw his arms around Bucky.

What bowled him backward was not the force of the hug—no, that was to be expected from Steve who was built like a brick house and always moved with an unstoppable power to everything he did. It was the full feeling that overwhelmed Bucky. He felt every stitch of Steve’s clothing. He felt every inch of Steve’s skin as he brushed against him. It was not the ghostly memory of skin, but true skin, with all of its warmth and imperfections. Bucky clutched him tighter so that he felt Steve’s hair against his cheek and rubbed his face against Steve softly.

“Steve, have you touched anybody since you,” Bucky thought better of his words, “since it happened, I mean.”

“Even I don’t get around that fast,” Steve laughed, and Bucky felt it against his chest, still pressed to Steve’s.

“Then you don’t know.” Bucky breathed, nearly in relief, almost in despair. Steve pulled away, but only to arm’s length.

“Know what?” He asked.

“That this is the first time I have touched anybody—really touched, not possessed somebody, but felt my body touch another person’s body—in, well, decades.”

“So this doesn’t happen often?” Steve asked. Bucky shook his head. “Then come make the most of it with me.” He said.

This time, when Steve and Bucky moved together, it was as if they had been doing it their entire lives. Each nuance of their bodies, all of their idiosyncrasies, were second nature to each other. Steve held Bucky in his hands, his mouth, between his thighs, and gave him everything he could. In return, Bucky gave Steve honesty. There was truth in what they did.

Steve looked into Bucky’s face, his true face, and saw devotion looking down from above him between their kisses, between the words that were panted in breaths that expelled no air. What he also saw in Bucky’s eyes as they made love—and that was, indeed, what they did—was an apology. Bucky kissed all of his apologies into Steve’s mouth and received all of Steve’s acceptance in return.

Bucky came, and Steve followed, clutching tightly to him until they stilled and let the air around them settle.

“Thank you.” Bucky said against Steve’s lips.

“I know it was you.” Steve said. Bucky sat up and left a gap between them.

“How long have you known?”

“Since you asked me to call you Bucky.” Steve said. He grabbed Bucky’s hand and pulled him back down to fill the space that he made, as if now that the barrier of life and death had been struck down for them, he was unwilling to let even a few inches separate them. Bucky draped his arm across Steve’s chest and pressed a kiss to his shoulder.

“How long have you known the other part?” Bucky asked. Steve turned to look at Bucky, worry in his eyes.

“What is the other part?” He asked.

“I am in love with you.” Bucky said. Steve let himself relax, feeling the comfort of Bucky against him.

“Just a little while, I guess.” Steve said. “I am glad to hear it, though, because I am in love with you.”

They kissed for so long that they forgot the time, and the date, and what they were doing or if they should be doing anything else at all. All they knew was the kiss and each other. Steve was with Bucky, and Bucky was with Steve and it had only taken both their lives to get there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you from the bottom of my heart to fuck-me-barnes for inspiring this story and to colorfulcandypainter for being my beta for the final chapter. I could not be happier with how this turned out.  
> Thank you to each and every person who read, left kudos, bookmarked, and commented upon this fic. I appreciate you all.  
> Happy Halloween!


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